


Right Now

by Leveeohsah



Series: In Time [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Sexual Politics, Slow Burn, lol what is happening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 22:01:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 43,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8864779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leveeohsah/pseuds/Leveeohsah
Summary: Part One of the Time SeriesAlternate Modern Universe where Hermione is a political savant, working as the right hand woman for the city commissioner of Ark City. After a stint together at Oxford, Clarke moves to Ark and ends up living with her best friend, again. Draco and Bellamy are closer than close, but finding it hard to forget. Octavia is an up-and-coming lawyer with a local barman's name to clear.





	1. Right Now

**Author's Note:**

> Brooooo whaaaaa? I've never done this before and it was a gift and you don't look gift horses in the mouth so saddle up that pony and rideeeee  
> SLOWEST OF BURNS EXCEPT EVERYTHING HAPPENS WITHIN 2 WEEKS SO TECHNICALLY NOT BUT ALSO YES?  
> (Feel free to leave comments, please and thank you!)  
> -Leveeohsah

 

 

He tried to focus on something, anything, but every second that ticked by was another failure he couldn’t seem to resist.

_“Bellamy,” she whispered into his hair and he groaned, his teeth bared, his eyes closed. His hands were like rigid fists at his side, but they were quickly losing their will to stay still. She was everywhere; under his shirt, in his ear, between his lips. “Bellamyyy,” she moaned, low, fervent, and he felt his brows knit together, his teeth gnashing, fighting the overload of his senses. He clenched his hands so hard they quaked with the effort of resisting when all he wanted to do was breathe her in. It was too much. SHE was too much. His head thrashed from side to side. He whispered curses that would not save him._

_“Bell—“_

Bellamy bolted upright with a grunt, his chest heaving and slick with sweat. He looked around room lit faintly by moonlight streaming through his window and waited for his breath to slow. Raking a hand through bedhead, he scratched at the fresh roughness on his jaw before turning to the clock on his bedside table that blinked a red _5:50_ up at him, accusing. He reached past it in the dark, grabbed his phone and dialed a number that picked up on the second ring.

“Drake.”

“Blake.”

“Still hard at work, I presume,” Bellamy grunted, forcing his voice to sound normal as he shoved his feet into the Nike trainers beside his bed.

“If that was a reference to me sleeping with my secretary, you’ll have to do better.” Over the line Bellamy heard the distinct shuffle of papers and the click of a pen. “Why are you calling? Jealous?”

Bellamy smirked as he pulled a sweatshirt over his torso.

“Meet me at the park in ten.”

“Ah. A drug deal. So, this is what it’s come to.”

Bellamy chuckled, but the joke had had its desired effect, his mind already starting to clear. In the dark he reached for his keys and workbag before jogging down the stairs.

“And Drake.”

“Hm?”

“Don’t forget your ‘ _trainers._ ’” Bellamy smirked, affecting an accent on the word.

A measured sigh rang through clear on the line, “Aye aye, Captain.”

***

When Bellamy Blake walked into work Monday morning it was a normal day. After his run he’d come to the station, 7:15 like always. When the rest of his colleagues began to trickle in around 8:30 he’d already perused the changes to the fall budget, reworked the criminal analysis proposal, followed up on last week’s APB hits, left Octavia a message about visiting for Thanksgiving, and had his first cup of coffee. He glanced up every so often through the glass window that spanned almost the whole length of the front wall of his office to nod at the team as they lumbered groggily to their desks. Half the day had already passed before another soul knocked quietly on his door.

It was Alice; quiet, kind, dependable Alice. She’d lived in Ark City her whole life and had worked at the station since before Bellamy came to them 3 years prior. Whatever his title might be, in having experience with Ark City he considered her senior to him, but somehow he found that she could never quite look him in the eye. “Captain Blake, I have the Wednesday reports for you to sign?”

“Bring them in, Alice,” Bellamy gestured with his hand as he finished up a call. She placed the large file on his desk and turned abruptly to leave.

“Alice.” He stopped her as he hung up the phone.

“Yes, Captain?”

“You’re happy here, correct?”

At that she looked at him full-on, her eyes stricken with terror. “Captain Blake if this is about the forensics write-up for the Woodson case—“

“It’s not. It’s about you,” Bellamy learned forward onto his creaking Maplewood desk. “You’re a highly valued worker here at the station, Alice. I’d just like you to know that.”

She smiled a little, finally. “Well then, yes, Captain. I’m very happy.”

Bellamy nodded and turned back to the files in his hand when he heard her curse slightly under her breath.

“So sorry, Captain. I almost forgot. The deputy, Officer Griffin they sent over from Skai City starts today. You requested to see her?”

Bellamy tried to fight his annoyance at the paperwork this would lead to, still somewhat annoyed that the state thought they needed another untrained trigger-happy deputy in the field. “Right. Send her in,” was all he said.

Officer Griffin was taller than he’d expected. She was 5’6, athletic in build and serious around the eyes. Beyond that she looked nothing like the guys the county had thrown his way in the past. They had woman deputies in the station, but none of them looked like the blue-eyed blonde sitting across from him now. Her hair was in a low braid and strands of the hay-colored stuff seemed to gently halo her face. Bellamy fought an inward groan.

“Captain Blake,” she greeted him at the door.

“Officer Griffin,” he nodded at the chair across from his desk. “It says here you were a both an Officer and a Junior Medical Examiner back in Skai?”

“That’s correct…sir,” she finished abruptly, surprised that she had forgotten the respectful term.

“Is that what intend to do here?” Bellamy said aloud as he continued to peruse the contents of her file.

“I’ll do whatever is needed of me,” she said, meaning it and Bellamy felt some of his muscles twitch unexpectedly at her words.

“You know what cases you’re on, Griffin?”

“I’m familiar with the Grounder case, yes. Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you serving as Lincoln Grounder’s legal representation?”

Bellamy felt the corner of his mouth quirk up. “Not quite.”

As if on cue, one Octavia Blake burst through his office door brandishing a blazer and a briefcase like weaponry. “Bellamy,” she said his name like a curse.

“My sister,” he said calmly his eyes never leaving Clarke.

“Oh. When Alice said you had company I was assuming Draco…” Octavia trailed off looking vaguely disappointed.

Bellamy rolled his eyes and stood. “That’ll be all Officer Griffin.”

“Captain,” Officer Griffin stood and nodded at him, a curt smile pulling on the bow of her pink lips before leaving his office.

Bellamy sat back down at his desk and rolled out his sore shoulders. “What is it, O?”

She wasted no time diving right in, her words coming a mile a minute before Clarke was even full out the door. “Right. You know how Lincoln—“

“Mr. Grounder”

“Whatever, you know he was implicated in assisting in damaging his own bar to collect the insurance.”

“That is the latest development in his case, yes,” Bellamy sighed before looking down at Officer Griffin’s file still in his hands. After a moment scribbled a note in Officer Griffin’s file:

**_Not my shift._ **

“I might be able to prove his alibi. Some street camera footage has suddenly resurfaced and—“

“Stop.”

“Bell—“

“If it’s illegal I don’t want it in this office, besides” he continued quickly before she could protest. “I believe him.”

Octavia looked dumbfounded, “you do?”

“Can we talk about this later, O? I’ve got a lot to get through today…” he trailed off still reading through Officer Griffin’s—Clarke was her name—file.

“It’s all in here. We can talk about it later,” Octavia finally conceded with a sigh, dropping a stack of papers and a hard-drive on his soon-to-be overflowing desk. “Bye, big brother.”

Bellamy smiled lightly before turning back to the file. He barely heard the door close behind her.

*******

Clarke liked to think that there was nothing she couldn’t handle. She didn’t always remember to get her flu shot and she couldn’t finish a game of Sudoku for her life, but most things, important things, those she could do all on her own.

At least she usually could. Her first day at Ark City police station had been shrouded in a flurry of activity. There had been forced introductions and the up-and-down looks from most of her male counterparts that made her shiver with disgust. Then there was Alice who spent ten full minutes singing the praises of the Captain and that had all happened before lunch. Now Clarke sat, phone in hand, on one of the benches outside of the station, staring distractedly down at a tuna fish sandwich and raking a hand through her hair.

“First days are tough,” Hermione tried to comfort her, but Clarke thought the words didn’t have the same effect over the phone. “I’ll admit it hasn’t been all that amazing here either.”

“The presentation?” Clarke asked between a bite of tuna fish.

“I thought it went well, but then I remembered not a single word could be heard over my raging vagina.”

“Trump’s America, H.”

“Pretty much,” Hermione muttered on the other end. “But you’re not going to make an office ally if you keep rejecting human contact.”

“But that’s our thing,” Clarke faux whined, amused. She flicked the crust of her sandwich, distractedly.

“Yes, but not when there are precious dollars at stake. Speaking of which, we’re running dangerously low on toilet paper.” Clarke reluctantly huffed out a laugh. “Plus, I thought we were working on being less intense.”

“I never agreed to that,” Clarke said with mock indignation before biting into the sandwich.

“C’mon, Kent, you can’t have tanked the whole morning. Tell me something good.”

She sighed at first, annoyed at the ridiculous request, but more ticked that nothing sprang easily to mind.

“I had a daydream about my boss, earlier,” she said finally picking at a thread on her pants. “He was shirtless for most of it.”

“OOO. Tantric.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“I love you, too.”

The click of the phone was both a welcome respite and an empty loss. Clarke shook her head and chucked the rest of her ten-minute lunch in the trash, the ghost of a grin still on her face as she walked with purpose back into the dry heat behind the station’s double doors.

On the short trip back to her desk near the door Clarke struggled to remember the deluge of names that’d been thrown at her just that morning, but settled for silent smiles at her friendlier coworkers instead. She plopped back into her desk chair with a thud and was reaching for the Grounder case blueprints when _he_ strode in, smart suit, slick hair, _definitely not a cop_ , Clarke registered over the excited, afternoon din of the room. For a moment he was at the door, _striding_ , nodding at… _Mitch? maybe?_ No sooner had Clarke returned to her blueprints that he appeared right over her desk, a serious guise on his face as he looked on through the large glass window at the conversation happening in the Captain’s office. Clarke glanced around, looking for a more senior officer, Alice, _anyone else_ to deal with this man who clearly knew his way around this place better than she did. She settled for,

“Hi. Can I help y--?”

“Draco!” Lawyer and Captain’s little sister, Octavia, called out as she closed the Captain’s office door behind her.

“Little O,” the stranger said fondly as she strode, _what’s with the striding_ , out to meet him.

“How is he?” Draco muttered quietly gesturing with his head at the Captain who was perched on his large office desk, engrossed in a thick manila file.

Octavia breathed heavily, “He’s good, you know. Maybe even better than good…I think he might put Lincoln on the wall.”

“Your Grounder case?”

“That’s the one. You think he’ll make it?”

“You know, he very well could, Octavia,” said Draco his eyes flitting back to Captain Blake.

Octavia folded her arms defiantly, “What do you want?”

“Judge Ellis.” Draco responded without hesitation.

“The commissioner’s judge? He owes me a favor. I think I could get you a meeting.”

“I don’t doubt it… hello; Draco.” He smiled down at Clarke suddenly, startling her as his eyes flit from her face to a community flyer on her desk.

“Uh, I’m Clarke,” she responded, strangely. He only nods slightly at her before checking his buzzing phone.

“You know if I remember correctly…” Octavia cut in, stepping even closer to er, Draco. “You owe me a favor, too.”

“Politics,” he said with a tight smile, his eyes no longer playful, before kissing her forehead. And then, with another glance at the Captain and a nod at Clarke he was gone. It was another moment before Clarke realized Octavia was still at her desk, sighing and swirling her fingers around Clarke’s mug of pens.

“We kissed,” she said suddenly, like it was enough of an explanation, or any at all. “I was young. He wouldn’t let it go any farther, you know…” she trailed off, looking back at Captain Blake. “But, it was a damn good kiss.”

“That’s…great.” _WTF is happening._

“And don’t let big brother’s frosty exterior get to you,” Octavia added, glancing back at her brother. “He’s not good with strangers…so try not to be one.” And then, just as strangely, she was striding out the station doors, too, a knowing smile on her lips. Clarke spent a minute staring after them until Alice tapped lightly on her desk brandishing a crisp, white note and a bright smile.

_See! This is what friendliness gets you Hermione! Weird personal exchanges and smiles—_

“From the Captain,” was all she said before dropping the note in Clarke’s hand.

‘ ** _This is your keycard to the armory and training rooms in the basement. Any questions can be directed at Alice._**

**_Glad to have you, Officer Griffin._ **

**_-Captain Blake’_ **

Clarke shook her head and stared after Alice, dropping files and reports onto desks and SMILING, and wondered if it was too late to get out of wonderland.

*******

 Hermione twirled an unruly curl around her finger before tucking it behind her ear as she stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, and what a sight it was. She saw anger in the angle of her brow, frustration in the redness of her cheeks, defiance in her brown eyes before she closed them and just _breathed_. She had always been bad at concealing her emotions, especially when she thought some injustice had been done. But today had been different, difficult. For the first time, for all her brilliance and fierceness, she’d felt utterly powerless. She didn’t know if the Commissioner’s elect would clap after her presentation, whether they’d have questions, maybe they’d dismiss it, but she thought, she was sure she would at least have commanded their respect.

With her eyes still closed, Hermione rolled her shoulders back and blinked her eyes open at a face that was an impassive shield. It wasn’t enough to be hired as the youngest commissioner’s assistant to ever ascend the position. It didn’t matter that she was the last to leave every night, or that her briefs were twice as long and as good as her more senior associates. Whatever she’d earned, whatever she wanted no one was going to give it to her. She’d have to take it.

Hermione squared her shoulders as she closed the bathroom door behind her. If she was going to get the Commissioner’s elect to take her seriously she had a lot of work to do. First there was the community Fall Festival that still needed catering, the Captain’s Ball that she still hadn’t gotten a dress for, not to mention the—

1…2…3. She counted on the way back to her office. She tried to avoid the prying eyes of the junior associates. Tried to drown out the gossip that bounced between the cubicle walls ( _Merlin’s ass Jan, does your mouth ever close?!),_ but try as she might, she couldn’t avoid the distinct sound of laughter bubbling behind the commissioner’s door as she passed.

 _Fuck this_ , she thought, pulling the new pending city plan from a file on her desk. She began circling a bunch of spots in red sharpie marker. _You know what’s funny? How about the fact that—_

“Hermione?”

“Yes, Jan.” Hermione fought to keep exasperation out of her voice.

“Dra—er, someone is here to see you. A Mr. Malfoy.”

“Who?” Hermione yelled back only half-listening. “I…don’t see that he has an appointment here, Jan so—“

“Yes, I completely forgot to add him to your schedule, I—“

“Well, right now I’m quite busy so—“

“I’ve got it Jan,” Hermione heard someone say on the other side of the door before Jan smiled like a giddy schoolgirl and shuffled out.

Hermione, already more than annoyed, closed her eyes and rubbed at her temples.

_1…2…_

“Hi.”

“Merlin’s ass does nobody here respect the schedule anymore?!” Hermione muttered as she scribbled a note in her planner.

‘ ** _FIRE. JAN.’_**

When she finally looked up her words seemed to lodge in her throat.

“Hi,” he said again after a moment, stepping slowly into the room with a smile. His voice was deep and smooth like pouring dark liquor, and suddenly she needed a drink.

“Hi,” Hermione croaked back at him. They stayed like that for a minute, him standing in the middle of her office, half of his mouth quirked up in a smile. Hermione holding her breath, waiting for some kind of explanation. So many questions flooded her brain, but she seemed incapable of asking a single one.

It wasn’t fair. People weren’t supposed to make ‘hi’ sound sexy. ‘Hi’ is awkward and stunted and _American_ which they were not.

_Is it the accent? Good god Hermione you have the SAME ACCENT. And why is he just standing there, all confident like he runs the place. He doesn’t! I DO! How did he even get here?! How did he know I was here? People don’t just stumble into Ark City do they? Well, besides me. That’s not the point, it’s just—_

“Merlin’s ass?” He chuckled a low rumbling sound, glancing around her office. “I haven’t heard that one in quite a while…”

“How…Why are you here?” Hermione heard her lungs force out, harshly.

“I’ve got some business in the area,” he answered simply, his serious eyes snapping back to her face.

“Right, but why are you _here_.” _In my office. Saying ‘hi.’_

“I’d like to schedule a meeting. With the commissioner.”

 _Of course._ Here she was, the only thing standing between him and another contract for the Malfoy Estates. She’d read all about his family’s North American real estate success, but she never thought he’d end up here. But, of course that’s why he was here. Not for her. Not that he would have crossed an ocean for her or anything. I mean she hadn’t seen him in six years! Except that one kiss. And a cryptic message one New Years’ Eve. But none of it mattered now.

_This isn’t about you._

“Also, Hermione—”

“I’m sorry, but that’s impossible.” Hermione said slowly, standing up to her full five feet seven inches, her impassive shield returned.

“Impossible.” Draco repeated the word, smirking, as though he must have misheard it. “Hermione surely—“

“You know the commissioner is quite a busy man. I’m sure you can understand. It’s hard to make time in his schedule for old friends, much less strangers.” _Woah. Where did that come from?_

Draco narrowed his eyes. “Is that so?” his low voice suddenly neared a growl that Hermione felt in her toes.

She smiled tightly back at him. “It is.”

Draco chuckled slightly and walked the two steps to her desk, leaning his knuckles on the wood surface.

“Hermione, I don’t know what this about, but—“

“I’ve just told you. He’s busy.”

“Busy.”

“Quite.”

There were mere inches between them now filled with electric heat. Hermione held her ground, her hands planted on the opposite side of the desk staring back at one Draco Malfoy. She was vaguely aware some unit of time had passed, but couldn’t be sure how much before he licked his lips and pulled away.

_Fuck. How long have you been staring at his lips?_

Draco scoffed and rubbed his jaw. “Right. Well, you let me know when he’s less ‘busy,’ won’t you, Hermione.” His calm words were tinged with venom as he turned to leave, but Hermione’s impassive shield had firmly returned.

“Unfortunately, I don’t believe he has your number.” Hermione tried to keep her voice nonchalant.

“Yeah, well you do,” Draco tossed over his shoulder before slamming the door behind him.

 _Some fucking nerve_. Hermione drummed her fingers on the desk impatiently. A second later she wrenched her phone from her bag and deleted a certain number from the section marked **‘D’**.

***

“This is ridiculous.”

“The cufflinks are a little much.”

Draco looked down at the sparkling cufflinks at the end of his folded arms and sighed.

“Blake.”

“Drake.”

They stared at each other for a moment, Draco’s gaze calculating, Bellamy’s vaguely amused. Draco had always been good at seeing the vision and instructing people on how to build it seemingly out of thin air. He could command attention in every courtroom and business meeting, could turn a blow into a morale-boost for his workers, could convince a priest to change his ways, could give his all and mean it, and he had every day for the last eight years and made it look easy. But for all his perfect charm and grace and all the things he’d accomplished, for all his greatness he’d never been particularly good at saying, ‘please’.

“Is there nothing you can do?” he grit out, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“What would you have me do, Draco? Arrest her?” Bellamy began to flip through his notes for the day just as Draco peeked open an eye to see if he was serious.

“Draco!”

“I need to meet with that Commissioner, Bellamy. I can only sell him on the plans in person.” Draco made a steeple of his hands, his mind already searching for other possibilities.

“Look, all I know about the girl is that she lives in some Main Street apartment with the Princess Rookie…Yes, I ran a background check on Officer Griffin. It’s protocol.”

_Riiight._

“Of course,” Draco said, effectively hiding a smirk…mostly.

Bellamy ignored him and reached for the Wednesday reports. “Elections are right around the corner. This isn’t the Main Street meets Wall Street kind of election you had in New York. What makes you think the Mayor wants anything to do with ‘Malfoy Apartments’ or a megamall—“

“It’s not a mall,” Draco said abruptly, staring absently at the papers strewn over Bellamy’s desk and tapping the index fingers of his tented hands.

Bellamy closed the folder he was glancing over and waited for an explanation, but instead Draco’s eyes seemed to alight on something at the corner of his gaze.

“Do you know apples are my favorite fruit?”

“You don’t say,” Bellamy sighed, distracted as his eyes landed on a copy of the new budget proposed from Wednesday’s meeting.

Draco only smiled and turned to walk out of the room.

“It’s not a mall,” he said again, smirking as he shut the door on a vaguely perplexed Bellamy Blake.

On his way out of the station he stopped at the desk by the door to chat with the rookie herself. Draco watched as she raised an oatmeal cookie to her mouth, her hand stopping in midair as she realized he wasn’t going away.

            “Can I help y—“

            “They’re calling you the ‘Princess Rookie,’” Draco said solemnly, looking down at Clarke with mild pity.

            “Who’s they?!” she nearly yelled, her eyebrows rising to her hairline.

            “Just the big ‘ol boss,” Draco raised his eyebrows, teasing.

            “Fantastic. And it’s only Wednesday,” Clarke muttered as she dropped her cookie onto a napkin.

            “I quite like it. I think this could be good for you, Clarke.”

            “It’s Officer Griffin.”

            “No, it’s Princess Rookie,” Draco muttered as he checked his watch.

            “What exactly is your point, Draco?” she sighed, exasperated and Draco leaned down so that his smirk was eye level with this woman who was almost a perfect stranger.      

“How’d you like to go to a ball?”

_***_

“Captain Blake? Did you need something?”

Bellamy sat on his desk with an amused smile and watched Clarke Griffin scowl up at his best friend who was doing his best to charm her. The smile, the lean, the confidence were all out in full force…and she wasn’t having any of it.

 _Maybe there’s something to the princess after all._ He knew there was _something_ about her, something different. Just yesterday he’d caught her lunching in the morgue and he’d somehow found it _endearing_.

_‘Rookie...do I even want to know what you’re doing down here?’_

_‘Um. Working?’ She was bent over the open chest cavity of a body with her scalpel frozen in mid-air and a sandwich half-way to her mouth, a deer caught in headlights._

_Bellamy only shook his head, a cherry on top to that’s weeks list of antics. ‘Mr. Opum’ he muttered, thumbing the toe-tag._

_‘Stabbing. No signs of serious struggle…there was no malice in this murder. Somebody just wanted him dead,’ she offered just as quietly, turning back to her…work._

_‘Somebody as in the murderer or do you think the guy was paid,’ Bellamy asked as he came around to her side of the metal table almost missing her raised eyebrows. ‘What? You think it could be someone else entirely?’_

_She smiled wryly up at him and brushed a crumb from her lip. ‘I’m just saying, lots of murders go unsolved because people get an ideal suspect in their head and think they know what they’re looking for.’_

_‘And what are you looking for, Clarke?’_

_‘I…I’m just looking.’_

“Captain?”

“Right. Tell Officer Griffin to be prepared to present her analysis of the Grounder case thus far in my office in an hour.”  
“Sure, Captain.”

“Thank you, Alice,” Bellamy nodded at her with a curt smile before turning back to his view of the office. Clarke was studying a small embossed card in her hand. Draco was gone, but Bellamy knew that was his business card. It had to be. And for some reason that was strangely annoying.

Just then his phone buzzed with a new text message from the man himself:

“ ** _Put the Grounder case on the wall. For O._** ”

“ ** _What’s she offering you for this?”_**

**_“Sexual favors, of course… Just put him on the wall.”_ **

**_“Now I have to block you.”_ **

**_“Grounder. Wall.”_ **

He pulled the heavy file Octavia had dropped off just earlier that week and held it in his hand. He glanced up just in time to see Clarke laugh quietly to herself and face-palm as half of her muffin ended up on the floor.

“ ** _We’ll see.”_**

***

 

“In an hour? I’m on it,” Clarke muttered as Alice shuffled away from her desk.

She’d been flipping through the Grounder casefile for two days now, but no matter how she looked at it something didn’t seem to add up. It didn’t help that today was Ark City’s Fall Festival, a tradition and apparently, kind of a big deal. All police personal that could be spared were to be in attendance, the mayor was going to give a speech, and small children would jump in piles of hay and colorful leaves while their parents drank cider and munched on catered snacks like apple crumble and…quiche.

 _Definitely not in DC, anymore,_ Clarke smiled ruefully. Sometimes she missed the District; its’ decent metro system, the constant movement of the city, and ugh the fast food joints. It was easily to feel like you were a part of something bigger there.

 _Or like you were completely alone_ , Clarke reminded herself. She’d been in her junior year at Georgetown when she met Lexa. They were studying abroad in London their senior year when they met Hermione, and the three of them stayed glued together for a whole four months stumbling through English bars and laughing into the night. What was funny was that Clarke and Hermione had stayed in touch after she’d returned to the states, she even came to see her once Clarke had moved to Skai when she was in the States to working a stint at the United Nations. It had always been easy talking to her. They were so similar. Each gunning down a pre-set course with full abandon; Law School for Hermione, Medical School for Clarke. It’s how Hermione had come so start calling her Clarke Kent, resident SuperGirl. There had been a whole ocean between them, but somehow they managed not to fall apart. It’d been Lexa who’d faded away…

Clarke stared at the file in front of her and tried to focus. It looked like an open-and-shut case: A business down on hard times, the owner looking for a way out, a ‘break-in,’ and a cash-out on the insurance money. It was all there, except…it wasn’t. Clarke reached for her phone in her back pocket, shaking her head. Hermione picked up in seconds.

“Clarke you’re not getting out of this, it’s your turn to buy the toilet paper—”

“If we owned a failing ice cream shop and you wanted to burn it down for the insurance, how would you do it?” Clarke muttered covertly into the phone despite the raucous sounds of the station bustling with activity.

“We wouldn’t sell ice cream. Requires too many smiles.”

“H, c’mon,” Clarke whisper-laughed into the phone as she watched a man in Bermuda shorts try to argue his way out of a parking ticket across the room. “Tell me something good.”

“Hm… well, I wouldn’t use fire, I don’t think. Someone could get hurt and then you’d have not only arson, but murder on your hands. Too messy. Too traceable, too.”

“Alright, Thelma. Pick your poison.” Clarke smiled into the phone, her mood lifting already.

“You could stage a clean break-in. Petty crimes don’t always get solved, especially in the city. Do a lot of damage to hike up the insurance pay-out…but”

“Given the motive, you’d need an alibi. You’d need not to be there at all—”

“Hm.”

“But he _was_ there. Or at least he should’ve been…”

“Officer Griffin, the Captain will see you now.”

_Shit. Don’t give me that look, Alice. This is a WORK call._

“Thanks. Alice,” was all she said. “I have to go. I’ve got a meeting with the Captain,” Clarke spoke into the phone quickly, gathering up the files on her desk, her neck craned awkwardly to support the phone.

“Nervous?”

“A little,” Clarke muttered as she trudged to the office, her heavy load of files held tightly to her chest.

“Just imagine him naked. I mean, judging from the midnight moaning that woke me up today you’ve had quite a bit of practice—”

“Hi…Captain,” Clarke said a little breathlessly, sliding her phone back into her back pocket and kicking the office door closed with her foot.

“Clarke,” he said curtly, before smiling in a way Clarke would describe as restrained. He gestured for her to take a seat.

“I’m sorry for cutting our first meeting short. Octavia, my sister, is the legal representation for Lincoln Grounder on your case. I’d just like you to know that whatever is discussed in my office, the limits of the law are never in question—” Captain Blake rushed on, almost rigidly.

“No, I…I get it. Family first.”

Something flit before his eyes, but then he smiled again, curt. “So, it’s been a week. What’ve you got for me?”

“Right. I was glancing over the Grounder case and I…are you sure everything about the case is in here?”

“What do you mean, Clarke?”

There it was, again. Clarke didn’t know why it mattered so much to hear own name.

 _Clarke_. His voice had been thick with heat when he whispered it to her in her ‘midnight fantasy.’ Somehow, here, in this totally platonic work space, it sounded even better.

_Jeez, focus. You’ve got something to prove, Rookie._

“Here, look.” Clarke said suddenly rising out of the chair. She spread out three sheets of paper, photos paperclipped to their fronts, on his side of the desk. “Have you seen these?”

“Yes, of course.” He said, still looking for something hidden in the photos he might have missed.

“What about this?” she said leaning forward and pointing to the pictures depicting the doorknob to the cellar and several cups behind the bar. “There are no fingerprints here or here.”

“I’m aware Clarke, get to the point.”

“Lincoln’s alibi is that he wasn’t at the scene of the crime when it was committed. But no prints? Anywhere? It feels like he was never at the scene of the crime at all, like he’s never even been in his own bar.”

Bellamy scratched at his 5 o’ clock shadow and leaned over the photographs, his eyes dark under knit brows.

“Security footage of Lincoln places him at supermarket around 10:15 PM and police were alerted about a break-in around 11PM. That doesn’t give the guys who did this a lot of time.”

“It’s guys, now? As in more than one?” Bellamy looked up at her with disbelieve written all over his features. Clarke took a breath and pressed on ignoring the heady scent of his cologne invading her senses.

“Not just guys. Professionals, Bellamy. They did a serious amount of damage and were in an out in less than 45 minutes. And wiping all those prints? That’s not a one-man job.”

“But, why would they even wipe the prints unless they made some sort of mistake. Sounds a lot like an amateur to me.” Bellamy leaned back and folded his arms setting Clarke with a hard stare.

“Even professionals make mistakes.” Clarke said back over folded arms of her own.

“You saying I made a mistake, Griffin?”

_Yikes, we’re back to Griffin now?_

Clarke measured her words carefully. “I…I don’t know. But I know what I see and there’s something here. And I’m going to figure out what it is.”

“Because you think I can’t.” He said with deadly calm, turning to her so that less than a foot separated them. His dark brown eyes dancing with quiet danger.

“I—”

“Captain Blake?” Alice, sweet merciful Alice, poked her head in the door. “You’ve got to be at the Festival in 20.”

“Thank you, Alice. Could you—”

She smiled and stepped through the door holding a pressed, white button-up and sensible black shoes.

“Thank you, Alice.” He repeated with a face-splitting grin as he took the items from her, and the emotional switch up made Clarke do a double-take. Alice only smiled ( _ugh the smiles)_ and let herself back out.

“You can go.”

It took a few seconds for Clarke to realize he was talking to her. “Okay,” she muttered shuffling awkwardly out of the room.

“Shit,” she whispered in annoyance as the door shut firmly behind her. _The files._ Clarke turned to retrieve them, only be met with an eyeful of a shirtless Captain Bellamy Blake.

 _Oh._ That was all she managed before he looked up suddenly as if he could feel her eyes staring at him. He only needed to raise an eyebrow before she went scurrying back to her desk only to find that someone was already sitting there.

_Please. Not today._

“Jeez, what toad bit you, Princess?” Octavia muttered between bites of her vanilla-frosted donut, her feet hanging precariously off the side of Clarke’s desk.

“What is with the ‘princess’ thing? I’m hardly the one in this station acting holier than thou,” Clarke grit between her teeth and tossing a glance back at the Captain’s office. He seemed to be shaving over a small basin of water Alice probably kept at the ready for him. What was with them anyway? _Perfect Alice with her perfect timing and hair and only using her phone for work calls. Bleh._

Clarke huffed and turned back to see Octavia looking at her with a slightly puzzled look. The lawyer held out her donut to her: a peace offering.

“Thanks.”

“We’re on the same side, remember?” Octavia said leaning back in the chair and closing her eyes.

Clarke hesitated, unsure if she should speak. “I think I found something…”

Octavia’s eyes shot open and she glanced at Bellamy through the office window just in time to see him tape a square piece of paper to the window.

“Yes! Oh Clarke, I always believed in you, you know?” Octavia nearly yelled, her grin just as bright as her brother’ had been moments before. “Give me your phone,” she demanded, and Clarke did if only to avoid another Blake-family argument. Something told her stubbornness ran in the family.

Just then Bellamy Blake came barreling out of his office.

“Alright let’s move people! Mitch, Dean, Miller, you’re with me. Donny, hold down the fort while I’m gone would you. O,” he addressed her with a nod when he finally reached Clarke’s desk.

“’ello Big Bro,” she smiled up at him and he ruffled her hair like they were much younger than their 24 and 27 years.

“Princess, try not to be late, will you?” he said gruffly before shuffling out the door.

“Wait, what? I’m not even working the Festival!” Clarke yelled after him as the station doors swung shut.

“C’mon, I’ve gotta be there, too. I’ll drive you.”

“You are easily my favorite Blake, Octavia.”

The lawyer only rolled her eyes and gathered her things. “I’ll be in the parking lot, Princess.”

Clarke shook her head as Octavia headed out the door, but she couldn’t help but be pleased to finally have a friend in the bold, younger Blake. Octavia walked around the station like she belonged there, her head high, her long hair, bone straight next to Bellamy’s unruly curls, swinging behind her as she went. Whatever she had going on with that Draco guy, he was an idiot to resist her. They really did seem like a family though, the three of them, and Clarke suddenly made a mental note to pick up toilet paper on the way home before Hermione decided to murder her in her sleep…because that’s what families do, take care of the little things. And maybe she and Hermione had no siblings and no parents to fall back on, but they had each other and somehow that felt like enough.

 Clarke quickly gathered her bag, but swearing under her breath, ran back for the files in the Captain’s office. Picking them up, she realized she had picked up her own file too by mistake, the contents of which were spread all around Captain Blake’s desk. Clarke wrinkled her brow, confused as to why he would need them before raising a stat sheet to her eyes that had her height (5’ 6) her hair color (blonde) and other standard info typed out in formal Arial text. Her new Main street address had been written in last in sloping cursive. The same hand-writing had scribbled something in the bottom corner of the sheet.

‘ ** _Not my shift_**.’

Clarke stared down at the sheet first in confusion and then in fuming disbelief. “That motherfu—“

She pulled out her phone when it beeped signally an angry new text from Octavia. “OMW” she typed back to the girl, and then hesitated for only a second before pressing send on a text she’d been meaning to send all day.

“ ** _A ball, huh? I’m in._** ”

***

“Anna, the streamers look fantastic. Thanks so much for your help,” Hermione smiled up at a woman finishing up the hanging decorations from her ladder perch. Hermione had been making the rounds of the Festival all morning, making sure the catering showed up and was settled accordingly, putting up the finishing touches on the decorations, child-proofing the cider bar, supervising the last-minute switch-out of the bouncy castle air-pump, and thanking everyone for making it possible along the way. It was only 11 AM, but kids were already bobbing for apples and screaming on the carousel while their parents sipped cider and got to know the local bakers and cooks responsible for the delectable apple strudel. Things couldn’t have gone any better. And she knew, because the commissioner had shook her by the shoulders twice now to say just that.

“Miss Granger, I must say, this could not have gone any better!” he gushed even now, waving his hands around the open-air park that had been transformed for the occasion.

“I did my best, sir. Please, don’t forget to try the crumb cake table. All the cakes are from Mary’s on 5th and Main, you won’t want to miss it!” Hermione laughed politely back at him, warmed by the attention. _Yep. It didn’t get much better than this,_ she thought, taking one final look around before her eyes landed on Clarke across the square with another girl who was sporting a briefcase and a blazer like military uniform and for some reason Hermione liked her already. She started to walk over to them, but stopped suddenly when another tall blonde got there first.

“ _Merlin’s bloody beard,”_ Hermione hissed under her breath as she quickened her steps to reach them.

“Hermione did you do all this??! It looks amazing,” Clarke yelled, looking around Ark Park like she couldn’t believe it was the same place. “Yeah, the Festival’s never looked this good,” the other girl, warrior with a briefcase, added.  “Way to kill it—”

“Hermione,” Hermione supplied.

“Right, sorry. H, this is Octavia and this is Draco. They’re kind of my office allies,” Clarke answered with raised eyebrows, but she seemed really pleased to have them there. Clarke wasn’t the best with um, _friendship_ and Hermione smiled to herself that she’d completed such a feat. Two whole office friends were a big deal, even if one of them happened to be called Malfoy.

“Oh?” Hermione turned her eyes to Draco, but he still hadn’t acknowledged she was even there.

“Office allies?” Octavia repeated, laughing. “What, against the likes of Alice, Princess?”

“She’s secretly evil. And I can prove it.”

“Nah, I’m with you. She’s off.” Octavia finished, waving her finger around her ear in the universal sign for ‘crazy.’

“Princess?” Hermione repeated, deliberately keeping her eyes from flitting to an eerily silent Draco Malfoy.

 “Yeah, the station’s pretty serious about nicknames.” Octavia nodded with faux solemnity.

“So there are others?” Clarke asked, teasing.

“Oh yeah. There’s Mitch the Bitch who’s always complaining about night shifts. Donny? The janitor? His real name is Tom, but he’s the one who keeps the station running. You know, the don of the operation.”

“And what about the Captain? What do they say about him?” Clarke said quietly, spotting Bellamy chatting with some other officers across the park.

“Bell? He’s just the Captain. Or Cap. For a while they were calling him the Arkham Knight of Ark City,” she laughed. “It makes sense I guess. We grew up in NY, he’s surly and brooding and all the Alices of the world just go nuts for him, he fights crime…whatever. He’s just Big Bro to me,” Octavia finished smiling fondly. Clarke’s face on the other hand was unreadable.

“Oh, you’re Octavia _Blake_. I’ve followed a few of your cases,” Hermione said, suddenly remembering why the name sounded so familiar. “I’d love to talk afterwards if you—”

“I think I’d like to grab an apple before their all gone. Excuse me,” Draco spoke suddenly, pulling out his phone and walking smoothly away.

_Smooooothly. What’s he got to be walking so smoothly about? Got some other offices to storm into, mate? Just using me to get to the commissioner, how typical, Draco. All this time and you haven’t chang—_

“Hermione! You in there?” Clarke waved her hands in front of her face. “I gotta get set up around the perimeter, but I’ll come find you later.”

“Right, yeah. Just text me,” Hermione said to no one in particular as Clarke hurried across the park. She sighed then and made her way back to dessert tables before getting her hands on a caramel apple.

“I suppose congratulations are in order. The festival looks great.”

 “Morgana’s mercy!” Hermione swore. _How does he always catch me off my guard!_

“‘Draco’ works just as fine, Hermione,” he smirked as he surveyed the tables’ wares.

“What are you doing here?” she whisper-shouted at him, glancing frantically around at all the parents and sellers seemingly oblivious to their argument.

“You know, you keep asking me that in places that are open to the public…” Draco said matter-of-fact, while paying for a green apple of his own, his thousand-watt smile soliciting one from the seller behind the table.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Draco what are you doing in my _life_. We don’t have to do this; you know,” she continued when he looked genuinely confused. “Pretend like you didn’t used to be a total dick—“

“I used to be a child, Hermione. And an idiot—”

“No, okay? Don’t.” She raised a hand to cut him off. “I don’t own Ark City. I can’t force you out of it. But, don’t pretend like were old friends just catching up just because you drunkenly apologized for your douche ways seventh year. And we kissed. Once.”

“I tried to keep in touch,” Draco said with forced lightness, the shiver of a smile on his lips.

“You texted. Guess how many times? Once. Are you sensing a theme here or is that just me!” Hermione watched as he ran his hand over his jaw, exasperated. His cool exterior vaporized in seconds. “Don’t come drop by my office like were pals, drumming up old… _feelings_ like they’re anything less than ancient history.”

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me, Hermione? Because I’ve been drumming up… _feelings_ ” he said, incredulous, raising his eyebrows in anger.

“Okay there is NO reason why you need to be at my office that often.” She jabbed a finger in his chest. “What? You and _Jan_ can’t find anywhere else to shag? How’s she doing, that Jan? You do see her more than I do these days—”

“This is about Jan?! Really? Are you mental?” he half-laughed, but it only made Hermione angrier.

“Actually, I seem to be the ONLY rational adult in this entire situation!”

They were making a scene, the voices raising even as the stood inches from each other, but Hermione wouldn’t be the one to back down. Not in hell. Draco reached for her as if he meant to hold her face between his hands and she gasped. He stopped suddenly, his hands in midair, his features riddled with a controlled frustration, but his eyes were bright with a thousand emotions that flit by so fast Hermione couldn’t decipher a single one.

“From the very beginning,” Draco said slowly, dropping his hands, but not moving an inch from her. “I’ve been an asshole and an idiot and many, many other things. But, I’ve also been honest, Hermione. From the very start.” His voice bordered on a dangerous quiet, but Hermione still felt her stomach flip at the sound. He was so close, and she thought she heard something like hurt buried in the chords of his words.

“Draco—” Hermione whispered wanting to concede but needing to stay strong, his name a quiet breath on her lips. He only shook his head and waved her off with a hand.

“You’re so…Hermione, when you’re ready to talk about your _feelings…_ you know where to find me.” _I’m so what? Just tell me what you’re thinking, I don’t know what you’re thinking!_ And without another look he walked away and Hermione wasn’t sure how many seconds she stood there just wanting him to say her name again. Her buzzing phone broke her reverie.

 _Banshee’s breath, Jan I swear—_ but it was a text from Clarke.

“ ** _No more midnight moaning about the captain. (We really cannot keep calling it that.) I’ll tell you more, later.”_**

 ** _*_** _buzz *** “I’m a good cop.**_ ”

“ ** _You are.”_** Hermione typed back quickly.

* _buzz*_ “ ** _< 3_**”

* _buzz* “ **Hey, it’s Jan! Could you…”** _ Hermione didn’t even read the rest of the text before deleting it. She spotted Octavia munching on cotton candy, by the carousel with a muscled man she recognized from the files Clarke brought home.

 _Lincoln_. Hermione remembered, but they seemed happy enough on their own without her interrupting. Clarke was busy. Draco was…Draco just was, and she was quickly running out of distractors. There was only one thing left to do.

**_Jan, just… I’m OMW._ **

***

“Lot is clear. Off to check the drums at the east perimeter, over.” Bellamy’s radio scratched out.

“Roger. Keep me informed.” He answered back. He was standing near a lamp-post in front of the carousel fixing glares on any child, Frisbee or animal that moved too fast, or unpredictably. From this spot he could survey the whole of the grounds and his eyes scanned it avidly for any sign of danger.

“Relax Blake, you’re scaring the parents.”

“I’m securing the perimeter.”

“No, your minions are, and I was talking about the permanent scowl on your face. You look like the monster under a child’s bed.” Draco’s eyes were closed, his hands clasped in his lap as he sat, his face open and calm on an Ark Park bench.

“Anything you want tell me?” he asked, quietly.

“Not particularly,” Bellamy huffed, already biting down on the words that threatened to fall off the tip of his tongue.

Draco sighed, deep and measured and Bellamy knew the grilling had only just begun.

“Is it about her money?” Draco said after a minute, betraying no emotion as he bit into a bright green apple.

“What? Who?”

“Your Princess.”

“My princess? How do even know…she’s not _mine,_ Draco. And anyway, from what I can see it looks like the best friend put a spell on you,” he scoffed.

For a moment Draco only shook his head, opening his mouth twice but each time reconsidering what he meant to say.

“Hermione.” Draco took another severe bite out of the apple, but said nothing more.

Bellamy took a breath and waited. “…she seems nice—”

“She’s self-contradictory most of the time. And silent for the rest of it. Not really silent, I mean the woman is never quiet, but when it comes to what she _thinks,_ what she _feels…_ I just don’t understand how someone so brilliant could not know the most basic—” he trailed off, frustrated, rolling the apple between his palms.

“Brilliant, huh?” Bellamy repeated quietly and folding his arms.

“In every conceivable sense.”

Bellamy knit his brow. “When was the last time you saw the secretary?”

“The morning you called.” Bellamy blinked remembering that morning, his dream.

“And Jan?”

“The morning _she_ called…I didn’t even know she was in America, much less Ark City. And then there she was announcing that fact to me through an automated pre-recorded city message, like I was a perfect stranger.”

Bellamy whistled. “It’s starting to look like you’re the one with the problem, Drake,” Bellamy smiled to himself even as his eyes flit across the park subconsciously searching for another blonde…

“As the kids say,” Draco sighed, turning to the kids screeching on the carousel. “Takes one to know one, Blake.” Bellamy looked down at his feet, the back of his neck burning at the small bit of truth in his statement. He cleared his throat.

“They’ve found you out you know,” he said instead, jutting his head to where the mayor’s entourage were readying his platform to speak.

“Yes, but they did afford me the decency of a day’s warning. Feel free to chant my name should you feel so led,” Draco said bitterly, still rubbing his temples.

“You know you deserve it—”

“You’re stalling, Blake. And while that’s telling enough, I’m sure you can understand why it’s important to me that you handle this situation like a fucking adult.”

“What are you, a therapist now?”

“Philanthropist, it’s pronounced. At least that’s what they’re putting on the trophy,” Draco nodded back at the platform that was nearly done with set-up.

Bellamy rubbed at his own eyes. Draco Malfoy, the blunt and unaffected bachelor supreme was torn up by a woman Bellamy didn’t even know existed. He hated himself a little for saying a mental prayer of thanks that it wasn’t Octavia.

 “What are you going to do about it?” he said firmly. Draco couldn’t _live_ like this. Sure, the mask of a smile would come back the way it usually did, like at his father’s funeral, and things would feel normal…but they wouldn’t be just like they weren’t then. Not until Draco had stumbled upon the letters locked in his father’s study. Letters addressed to him, but never sent. It was exactly what he’d needed; _closure._ Despite their estranged relationship, it was clear Draco loved his father, even when he spoke of him with a pain that rarely graced his face. But this ‘Hermione’ had torn up the Draco he knew. The man who wouldn’t let another soul within arm’s length of his heart; she was in his head and now in his world every day and he couldn’t seem to get to her or let her go.

Bellamy thought of Roma. Of how love lost makes you do crazy things. How it keeps you from breathing and wakes you up in sweats. He turned away just in time to see Clarke carrying a car-seat across the parking lot, laughing as she walked with the mother who held a baby cradled in her arms.

“Now? I do nothing, now. Ball’s in her court, or whatever that American phrase is,” Draco said distractedly.

“Right.”

“Not ‘right’. Clarke doesn’t even know you’re on the court, Blake. She doesn’t know there’s a court at all.”

“I do not. Have a thing. For the Rookie,” Bellamy declared more to himself than anyone else.

“Is that why it’s so hard for you to say her name right now?” Draco said gently. After a moment he groaned and stood to his feet, a rueful smile already peeking out from his features. “Get some sleep. Joy comes in the morning.”

Bellamy cleared his throat. “I have been, you know…sleeping.”

“Oh good,” Draco began adjusting his cuff-links and rolling back his shoulders. “I thought I might host a sleep-over where we tried to braid that mop on your scalp, but since you’ve got it all figured out…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bellamy muttered adjusting the man’s tie and pulling it tight enough to mime choking him which lead to a short-lived punching match and a more genuine smile than he’d seen on Draco’s face for a while before he headed toward the platform.

“And Drake!” Bellamy called out to him as he walked away.

“Hm?”

“Dinner’s at 7, don’t forget.”

“I never do.”

And then Draco was off, the controlled smile on his face sitting a little more comfortably, and Bellamy took a minute to watch him go, if only to keep his eyes from wandering across the lot…

***

“Any time,” Clarke said with a nod before watching the new mother she’d been chatting with pull out of the parking lot. She waved slightly after her, turning back only to find one Bellamy Blake scowling back at her across the park. She needn’t have looked though, his low voice crackled through her walkie before she could even turn around.

“What are you doing?” he spoke as if to a child, his voice sure and steady despite the static that surrounded it.

She sighed, already annoyed with his smugness. “My absolute best to obstruct justice, Captain. Can’t you tell?”

“Officer Griffin—”

“You see, I seem to do that just by existing. I mean that’s why it so important for you not to work with me, isn’t it? Can’t have the _princess_ on your shift fucking up the law or something?”

“Clarke,” his voice was a low rumble of thunder that ran down her spine, deceptively soft and heavy at the same time.

“How about this,” she said pacing as if she was actually considering an idea. “How about you stop pretending that reading my file means that you know anything about who I am? How about you stop assuming what I _can’t_ do? And oh, here’s one! How about you let me do my job, Bellamy.”

Clarke heard tires screech behind her, somewhere near Mitch’s section and she raised her voice over the noise. “And another thing--!”

Tires squelched behind her, screeching in her ears. She could hear the brakes losing traction, but she couldn’t turn around fast enough, she couldn’t move. It was all happening at the same time.

_Clarke…Clarke?_

“I—”

The crunch of boots on gravel, the air knocked out of her chest as strong arms encircled her, the loud thud as together they collided with the ground.

“Clarke?! CLARKE!”

He’d come out of nowhere. Like she’d conjured him right out of her walkie, and now his calloused hands brushed hair from her face, cradled her against his lap.

“Clarke!?” He shook her, forcing her to look back into his eyes. How much time had passed? The same angry brows dipped low and knit together, dark curls swinging into his vision, but his eyes, had there been that much fear in them before?

“Bellamy?” Her voice was like a switch going off. His whole face transformed, stoic as stone, no anger, no fear. He pat her down roughly, checking for broken bones, blurry vision all the while one arm wrapped around her, steadying her in his lap.

“Can you stand,” his voice came out harsh and burdened. It wasn’t a question. After finding no broken bones he tugged her up after him without care.

“Clarke! Clarke, I’m so sorry…” That was Mitch, running over, ashen-faced and trembling.

“Mitch, it’s fine. I’m fine.” She gestured vaguely at him, still trying to regain her footing, but he seemed to go white. Clarke, confused, glanced over at the teenage kids frozen in their car probably praying their junior licenses wouldn’t get revoked before her eyes landed on Bellamy who was fixing her with an incredulous glare.

_Okay. Not fine._

He gripped his walkie so hard he might have broken it, but just then a voice broke through the static…

“Captain? Swerving in the lot… no one hurt… permission to proceed,” the voice blared out.

Mitch took a tentative step forward. “Captain, I—” but Bellamy tuned a murderous glower in his direction that stopped him in his tracks. _Oh._ He glanced back at Clarke is if remembering she was still there, his jaw clenching, his eyes dark and brought the walkie to his mouth.

“It’s handled,” he growled back at the receiver, glaring at them once more before storming silently away.

“Clarke—” Mitch said quietly as they watched the Captain’s retreating back.

“Check on those kids, Mitch.”

“But—”

“MITCH. NOW,” she yelled even as she turned to run away from him and toward Bellamy, who was farther away every second. She didn’t even know why she was running, she just…how did he get to her so fast? She just needed to reach him, but he was already getting lost in the crowd.

 _Bellamy_?

“Clarke.”

“JESUS, what?!” Clarke jumped causing Octavia to jump back just as Lincoln tried to steady her.

_Wait, Lincoln?_

“Clarke, this is Lincoln. I’ve been telling him about the state of the case,” Octavia said slowly as if speaking to a wild animal.

Clarke only nodded when the large man next to Octavia smiled at her since she wasn’t sure she could form a coherent sentence at this point. Gratefully the crowd around them began to erupt in cheers as the mayor took the podium, saving her from further embarrassment. Her phone buzzed, distracting her again.

 ** _“Feeling pretty intense today…”_** Clarke glanced around the crowd and found Hermione standing at the base of the platform, tapping her foot and pinching the bridge of her nose.

 ** _“I thought we were doing less of that.”_** Clarke typed back. Hermione chuckled slightly and nodded.

**_“It’s crazy, it’s like the ONE thing I’m not good at.”_ **

**_“You’re so annoying.”_ **

**_“Yep. Great at that, too.”_ **

Clarke looked up to see Hermione biting her nails at the front of the crowd before turning back to Octavia and Lincoln who were whispering excitedly about something. “Hey guys, I’ve got a lot going on here right now. Why don’t we all meet up after this?”

“Sounds good. I own this awesome bar on 6th,” Lincoln said, still staring at Octavia who then laughed… or, snorted might be a better word for it.

Clarke smirked, but pretended not to notice for their sakes and made her way through the crowd. The mayor was blaring on about the city staying strong despite budget cuts, but the crowd is shuffling uncomfortably and whispering their distaste. Even Hermione was shaking her head. “More budget cuts? This city can’t even handle a paper-cut. We’re bleeding out, Clarke.”

“Looks like you’re the hero we need, H,” Clarke said quietly, hoping a joke would cheer her up.

“Well we’re definitely looking at a villain,” Hermione muttered back, shaking her head in disbelief. They clapped at the appropriate times and rolled their eyes at others and somehow before Clarke knew it, Captain Blake had taken the stage, his signature glare replaced by a serious, slightly less menacing scowl.

 _Really?_ Clarke glanced at Hermione and rolled her eyes, but the politico just stared ahead, absently, lost in her own thoughts.

“Citizens of Ark City…it’s nice to see you all in the light of day,” Bellamy began, scratching his fresh-shaven jaw and peering around the crowd. “Usually when we meet it’s at 2 AM when your neighbors’ kids party is keeping half the street awake. I gotta say, this is definitely my preference.” The adults in the crowd chuckle and even Bellamy lets slip a small smile before continuing. “But, I won’t stand up here and pretend I can do this job alone. We’ve got an excellent crew of deputies that answer every call to serve and protect. There are the emergency dispatchers and paramedics and doctors and even citizens who uphold the law even if that just means putting on your seatbelt. They all…you all, keep Ark City safe.” At this point the crowd whoops and cheers and Clarke can’t stop herself from clapping, too. Bellamy’s eyes are warm when he gazes out at them; his voice strong and commanding, his stance is sure and Clarke can’t help but see that ‘Captain’ is a title he was born for.

“There’s someone else among you who works tirelessly for this city, long after the sirens have stopped. I might be your Captain, but I don’t think I could get through the job without him. His work with the city council to propose a new city-wide spending model as well as his numerous developmental projects might lead you to call him a saint…that is if he ever took any of the credit. Today we are recognizing him as one of our City’s Heroes. He’s part of the reason I can feel secure in our city’s future every night when I fall asleep.” Bellamy smiled to himself, but just as soon as it graced his face he was all business again. “Draco Malfoy protects this city. I don’t know what I, or what we would do without him.”

The crowd erupts in cheers again, but Clarke and Hermione are frozen to their spots, jaws hanging.

“Did he just say—”

“Yep.” The seconds ticked by as they just stood there gaping, and then suddenly they were speaking a mile a minute.

“Colluding. I’m sure of it. Bellamy Blake, who would have thought he would stoop so low,” Clarke said first, her voice steeped in disbelief.

“Have you MET Draco Malfoy? It was probably his idea! But, what does he mean ‘our city’s future?”

“Wait, you know Draco?”

Before Hermione could answer, Draco Malfoy, donning a medal of honor around his neck took the stage.

“Thank you Captain Blake and Mayor Jaha for giving me this great honor. Ark City has a lot of heroes watching over it. It’s nice to be recognized among their ranks…” Draco glanced around the cheering crowd, the corner of his mouth lifting, but then his gaze stayed fixed as his eyes seemed to alight on something in the crowd.

 _Or someone_ , Clarke thought to herself, following Draco’s gaze to Hermione’s own, beside her.

“I’m glad to have the support of the Captain, our Mayor, and all of you who fuel this city. And it is with this support in mind that I’d like to officially announce my campaign for mayor.”

The crowd erupted in cheers and Draco can’t help but chuckle behind the podium, his eyes bright and open. Clarke turned to Hermione, but she’s eerily quiet amid this whooping crowd, but it’s her fiery eyes that have Clarke worried. Before she can say anything else her phone beeps with a new text from Octavia.

**_“Calling you in for back-up. Lincoln’s gonna meet Big Bro.”_ **

***

It was a moment before Draco, shaking hands with the last of the Arkers catering the festival, spotted her across the park, tramping over in her sensible heels, kicking up dust in her wake.

 _A force to be reckoned with, this girl,_ Draco sighed to himself as the last Ark patrons pat him on the back and shuffled away.

“You know, sometimes I think you exist just to spite me,” she snarled up at him, some of her honey-brown curls coming undone.

He sighed. “We both know are several other things I exist to do to you, Hermione.”

“Bite me.”

“I’m tempted. You’re halfway to a spanking already…”

Heat colors her cheeks in it’s so delicately beautiful it takes everything to hold himself back.

_The things I would do to you, Miss Granger._

“Draco!”

“I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got a dinner to get to,” he said suddenly, checking his watch and side-stepping her in one motion.

“It’s 4 PM.”

He cocked his head to one side studying her and tucked a curl behind her ear. “Someone’s got to get the cobbler,” he said smiling, and strolling away. When he reached his car, his phone buzzed with a new text from Octavia. Draco glanced up in the parking lot just in time to see Octavia chatting with a large man he didn’t recognize, a blonde he could tell was Clarke from a mile away and a face he could never forget.

**_“We’re having company.”_ **

**_***_ **

“Well, this is home!” Octavia announced as the four of them reached the front door of her apartment. Clarke and Hermione stepped in and exchanged glances, a whole conversation passing between their eyes.

“ _Are we really about to have dinner at the apartment belonging to the sister of the man you fantasize about daily who also happens to be your boss?”_ Hermione asked by way of a raised brow.

 _“I TOLD YOU I’M NOT DOING THAT ANYMORE.”_ Clarke said back with widening eyes.

“ _Oh please, you like him! You texted me about something he said offhand about Persephone while your other hand was elbow-deep in a cadaver!”_

_“CAN WE JUST. GO. INSIDE.”_

_“What? Hungry for some Cap’n Blake Crunch?”_

_“Ew, H. Just ew.”_

“Are you guys done wagging your eyebrows at each other? It’s getting weird,” Octavia deadpanned from the top of the stairs, Lincoln following dutifully behind her. “There’s wine on the table. Have some.”

“They really are all bossy,” Hermione said under her breath as she walked over to the dining room table.

“Told you,” Clarke responded just as quietly, glancing around the spacious pad. It was a nice place, split floor so that the living room, kitchen, dining, a small bathroom and even a guest room were on the first floor, but there was another bedroom, bathroom and a ‘study’ on the second. Clarke leaned against the kitchen counter and grabbed the glass of wine Hermione held out to her and took a large gulp. It had been a long day.

“I was just teasing, Clarke. Everything will be fine, it’s just dinner,” Hermione said soothingly, her eyes communicating genuine concern. “And if not, we’ll just go.”

At the Clarke laughed, dryly. “We can’t just go, Hermione. Her brother is my actual boss, don’t tell me you forgot already.”

“Hey,” Hermione said seriously, peering at her with eyes that betrayed a lack of sleep behind their determined gaze. “We can go anywhere, anytime. And that option is personally starting to look more and more attractive every day…” Hermione trailed off, swirling her index finger around the rim of her glass.

“Wait, what? You’re thinking of really leaving? As in leaving Ark City?” Clarke sputtered, taken aback.

“It’s just a thought, Clarke. I just want to be aware of my options and I was contacted by one of my contacts at the UN. It’s just something I started thinking about.”

Clarke turned on sharply her heel and cocked her head to one side. “Wow…Have you always been this antiseptic?”

“Clarke, it’s not like I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Well, looks like you’ve got it all figured out. Thanks for having the decency to tell me. I mean, that’s more than your parents got,” Clarke said with fake cheer, folding her arms in anger.

Hermione took a step back. “And how exactly is _your_ mom doing these days, Clarke? She’s a bus ride away and she doesn’t even know if you’re alive.”

“Well I didn’t exactly grow up in a house with tea parties, Hermione. You don’t know what she’s like.”

“Bullshit. You’ve been running your whole life, so don’t be mad just because I decided to leave first.”

“Who’s hungry?” Octavia called cheerily as she marched down the stairs followed by a sheepish looking Lincoln Grounder.

“Starving,” Clarke muttered.

“Ravenous,” Hermione said with a forced smile.

“Great!” she chirped, oblivious to the storm that was brewing in her as she checked her phone. “The boys should be here any minute…”

“What?”

“Who?”

Just then the apartment door was flung open to the sound of raucous laughter as two men spilled into the living room, their arms full of groceries, their faces sporting full-teeth smiles.

“And this from the man who would compare Baywatch to Barbarella!” said a voice with a distinctive English lilt as they rounded the corner, dropping the bags on the dining room table.

They glanced at each other suddenly and nodded. “Barbarella!” they chorused in unison before slapping hands and chuckling.

Octavia wrinkled her nose, “Okay, you apes. Now that you’re here, why don’t you tell us what’s cooking?”

The men in question turned finally toward the kitchen, their smiles immediately dropping from their faces. For a half a beat the group just stared at each other in uncomfortable silence.

“A lawsuit,” Draco supplied.

“Probably a life-sentencing…” Bellamy said scratching his jaw.

“You should at least prepare for trouble,” Draco finished shooting Hermione a glance.

“Well…better make it double?” she said back tentatively.

“Did you just quote Team Rocket?” he asked back barley containing a grin.

“I’m sorry, I thought we were doing a thing…?”

“Alright, everybody out of the kitchen!” Octavia said suddenly with a wave of her hands. “They don’t even let _me_ near the pot before it’s done.”

“That’s because your specialty is roasted water,” Bellamy chuckled genially as he lifted the groceries into the kitchen.

He stopped to say something to Clarke, but, thinking better of it, simply started heaping food out of their bags.

Draco followed him to the counter, biting his lip and smirking down at Hermione as she walked out of the kitchen. “It’s lasagna,” he said quietly still smiling and Clarke rolled her eyes as Hermione’s cheeks redden all the way to the living room couch.

Most of the evening passes in animated chatter. Hermione asks Octavia about her cases which leads to them talking about Lincoln’s case which Clarke responds to sparingly, and only when she’s asked directly for an answer. By 7:45 she’d found an excuse to go freshen up in the upstairs bathroom, it’s white tiled walls and fresh, embroidered linens standing out as distinctively…well, homey. The whole place carried this feel of being really lived in, the sneakers lined up near the door, notes on the refrigerator, family pictures in the hallways. Clarke traced her finger over the one just opposite the master bedroom. It was of Bellamy and Octavia grinning as she up her diploma, her other hand holding down her cap from blowing into the wind. She stared right at the camera, her face incandescently happy, but Bellamy only had proud eyes for her.

“That was three years ago, now. Still blows me how time can move that fast.” His presence wasn’t uncomfortable or intimidating, and Clarke knew she only needed to turn her head the slightest bit to see his signature scowl that didn’t meet his eyes.

 “Where’s Draco? Did he take the photo?” She turned to see Bellamy’s quizzically raised brow. “It’s just, you’ve known him since you were in college. I figured he’d be—”

“You have a talent for looking at a scene and knowing what’s missing,” Bellamy said matter-of-fact, turning back to the photo.

“Thanks?”

“It’s just a fact,” he said gruffly, folding his arms. “Where’d you learn that?”

Clarke sighed and hooked her thumbs into the rungs of her jeans. “I draw…or I used to. Now I mostly just do it in my head.” She rolled her eyes seeing he was still confused.

“Look,” she said, pointing to where he and his sister stood in the middle of the frame. “You and Octavia are obviously at her graduation,” she said calmly, moving her hands more to the periphery of the picture. “Probably still in New York.”

“How do you know that?”

“You’re outside.”

“And?”

She swept her hand along the bottom of the photo. “No grass.”

“You got that from the concrete?”

She rolled her eyes again, her finger hovering over his chest in the frame. “And your badge.”

Bellamy scratched at his jaw and cleared his throat. “Right.”

“So, who took the photo?”

“I thought you said it was Draco?”

“I did, which you never confirmed…plus if he was there, he’d be in it.”

Bellamy shook his head and smiled. “Clever girl.”

“Roma,” he said quietly when he realized she was still waiting for an answer.

“Where is she now?” Clarke said just as quietly, turning to face him, but he only gave her a tight smile.

“We didn’t work out.”

A moment passed as they stood silent in that hallway, their eyes trained on the old photograph, their hands brushing in the small space.

“Three years is a long time,” Clarke said, finally.

“Sometimes not long enough,” Bellamy said more to himself, stuffing his hands into his jeans. He smiled at her then, wise and rueful before nodding toward the stairs and Clarke blinked, her eyes not fast enough to catch what was missing in his own.

“C’mon. I don’t slave over a hot stove for my health.”

Clarke stifled a chuckle when Bellamy turned back to shoot her a glare, but there was no malice in it. She trailed behind him on the stairs watching his curls bounce with every step, the taut muscles of his neck that pulled when he smiled, the broad shoulders that filled his shirt so effortlessly and wondered what picture of Bellamy Blake her mind would draw up for her tonight.

***

Bellamy sighed as he stepped into the kitchen breathing in the smells of parsley and cooked pasta.

“D’you find the bathroom alright, mate?” Draco said with a sly smile as he topped off the lasagna with pepper.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bellamy shot back, rolling his eyes and picking up the salad to set on the dining room table. “You ready for this?”

“It’s just dinner.”

“It was _just. dinner_ ,” said Draco, his groan muffled between the hands he held over his face. He and Bellamy had just pulled into the parking lot of Lincoln’s bar on 9th and they sat there in Draco’s car, staring at the brick wall of the building next door and wondering how they even got there. “Things started off so well…”

“Well it’s your fault,” Bellamy said with a smirk.

“All I asked is how they came to be in Ark City,” Draco groaned.

“Now why’d you have to go and do that?” Bellamy chuckled.

“You’re right, I should have anticipated them then wanting to rip each other’s throats out.”

Bellamy raked a hand through his mop of hair. “Them,” he said quietly.

Draco shook his head, “A week and a half we’ve known they were in Ark City and there’s already an ‘us’ and a ‘them.’”

“Is this the part where we gear up to fight?” Bellamy mocked him, his tone half-serious.

Draco watched the headlights from Octavia’s car light the parking lot in his rearview mirror. “I hope you brought your _trainers_.”

A moment later they stood in front of the bar entrance, six unhappy campers. Well, two unhappy campers, two fucking ecstatic campers, and two ADULTS waiting for the shit to hit the fan.

“The official grand opening is tomorrow, but Octavia here convinced me to let you guys see it first.”

“And I intend to be impressed,” Octavia purred, leaning into him.

“You will be.”

“Oh, will I?”

“Let’s fucking find out,” Bellamy grunted pushing between them and into the dark bar. Lincoln only chuckled and reached for the light switch.

“Welcome to my humble establishment.”

Lincoln’s bar was all dark wood and sconce lights and smelled like fresh pine. There was a small step-up platform to the back of the room where a microphone, drums and two guitars were set-up. It all looked very Game of Thrones meets cover band.

“Wow,” Octavia cooed as she stepped into the room and Bellamy did his very best not to roll his eyes. He had to admit though, the place did look good.

An hour and two beers later, Bellamy watched as Clarke and Octavia talked quietly at a table near the rear of the place, Clarke was drawing on a napkin and O kept nodding emphatically which already made him weary. What he really wanted to do was go over and ask them why they were so _buddy-buddy_ all of a sudden. The princess and his sister… it didn’t seem natural. Instead he watched Draco strum an acoustic version of The Police’s Every Little Thing She Does is Magic which was annoyingly good while Hermione tried her very best to ignore him which she was currently doing by nursing her fourth shot of Jack Daniel’s. Lincoln nodded at Bellamy once, and jerked his head in her direction. It was time to cut her off.

“Whiskey on a weeknight?” he mused, sitting down on the stool next to her.

“You gonna arrest me?”

“No ma’am.”

“How do you feel?” Bellamy asked after a moment.

“I feel like…like I’m losing control.”

“…right.”

“Yep.”

“I’m Bellamy, by the way. We weren’t properly introduced during, er dinner.”

“Was that tomato sauce or blood that flew across the table.”

“Oh, bloodbath for sure,” he said with a nod and she laughed, finally and sat up a little straighter on her stool.

“You know, you’re not so bad Captain Blake.”

“Did the Rookie tell you that?”

“Yep,” she nodded emphatically. “Tells me a lot about you.”

“Like what? That I’ve got claws and I snarl.”

“Growl,” Hermione corrected with a giggle. “That you mean what you say. You’re not quick to abandon your beliefs or your people or your city--”

“She said all that…?” Bellamy raised an eyebrow and glanced at the table where Octavia and Clarke were still talking in hushed whispers.

“You’re stubborn…that’s good.”

“You think so?”

Hermione swiveled on her stool to watch the girls chatting in the back, too.

“She does.”

“Hm.”

“Yourrragoodman, BellamyBake,” Hermione said with a drowsy grin. Draco, who had been talking with the girls ( _the girls, typical_ ) was already making his way over.

“Alright, Granger. Let’s go,” Draco muttered, scooping her up in both arms.

“Ugh, I’ve always been rubbish at flying,” she whispered into his neck as she settled in his arms and Bellamy watched as he fought back a smile.

Bellamy glanced over his shoulder once more to see Clarke’s worried face as Draco carried Hermione out of the bar.

 _She’s in good hands_ , he tried to say with his eyes.

 _She better be,_ was all she said back with hers and he chuckled, wanting to go over to her. Wanting to ask ‘ _what are you gonna do about it if she’s not?’_ Wanting her to challenge him amd push his buttons and—

“Lincoln, be sure _the girls_ get home safe, will you?”

Lincoln nodded with a smile. “Yes, sir.”

He thought of telling Octavia that her boyfriend wasn’t so bad, but that would be a mistake, too. He knew what she’d say.

_Neither are you._

***

It had been two hours since Bellamy, Draco and Hermione has left the bar. Two hours of Clarke and Octavia going over the same facts, the same evidence to no avail. Clarke ran her thumb around the neck of her beer watching as her prints took shape on the cool, glass surface. “Octavia...I think…”

“You found something? What did we miss? I want to hear everything.”

“Okay,” Clarke sighed, measuring her words, knowing their weight. “Remember how after the accident there was a lack of prints at the crime scene. Not Lincoln’s, not anyone’s.”

“Right. And we have him on tape at a local supermarket at the time of the break-in, but what does that have to do with the guys who did this?”

“Because he was supposed to be here. They were expecting him.”

“You mean they wanted to kill him.”

“Yes.”

“That’s why there needed to be more than one of them. Because otherwise, he would’ve kicked their ass.”

“Right.”

“You lost me after that point.”

“I got lost, too. Until I noticed these bodies in the morgue…” Clarke pulled out her phone scrolling through images until she found the right ones: bodies toe-tagged Charlie Opum, Clarice Winter. “I know I shouldn’t have these photos, but look. All stabbings, in the neck like the killer came up behind them, but no prints there either. Mr. Opum was first. He owns the warehouse on the edge of town—”

“Yeah, I know him. Draco’s got the lease on the next one over on the right not far from the town line, I think it’s where he keeps his cars or something.”

“Okay, what about Ms. Winter?” Clarke flipped to the next image on her phone.

“Laundress, on 12th and Broad St. next to M Co.”

“What side?”

“Excuse me?”

“What side of M Co. was her laundromat on?”

“I guess the left from street view, but so what?”

 “Lincoln’s bar is right behind the old memorial library, just renovated this year,” Clarke muttered, her eyes scanning the photo for another answer, another solution besides the one in her head.

“Clarke you’re not making any sense.”

Clarke sighed,

“Who knew that Draco was going to run for mayor?”

“Just Bellamy. And probably some people at Hermione’s office, I mean he’s always there. They might have…”

“What?”

“Judge Ellis. He’s this idiot judge in the pocket of the commissioner. He would have known. He was at the courthouse the day Draco was requesting to see the city charter, you know so he could run. I had just finished a case and I saw them in the hall. They were talking pretty heated—but what’s any of this got to do with that?”

Clarke scribbled on a napkin. “Right of Draco’s warehouse, Left of Malfoy Co., Behind the library—”

“That was partially reconstructed in his name. Oh my god, Clarke. Someone is sending a message, like they’ve got him surrounded or something.”

“Think about it. Given the political climate Draco’s about to step into, he’ll be surrounded by people like Judge Ellis, Chief Kane, and the new economic director? He and the commissioner basically ran on the same ticket. We even heard about that controversy back in Skai.”

“You think the commissioner has something to do with this?”

“City funding for general projects, commercial infrastructure in all goes through the commissioner. If he’s behind this and Draco gets the bid for mayor he’ll be surrounded by all of his corrupt cronies.”

“That’s a big ‘if,’ Clarke.”

“Octavia, I’m saying if we don’t stop this, it’s only a matter of time before Draco is next.”

Octavia rubbed her temples and closed her eyes. “Are you absolutely sure.”

Clarke circled an open space on her napkin drawing. “There’s only one way to find out.”

***

Draco tried his best to keep to the speed limit, but he didn’t like to be out and about at 3 AM if he didn’t have to be. Not when he had a little more than an inkling his bid for mayor had also made him enemies with a lot of power. And certainly not with Hermione Granger in the seat next to him.

“Take me to the office,” she murmured, half-drunk and drowsy.

“No.” He reached over her and held her back as they rounded a sharp turn.

“Draco.”

“No.”

Just then his phone beeped with an incoming call. He checked the clock, moderated his speed and pressed ‘answer’ on his dashboard.

“Mr. Malfoy, where are you now?”

“You’re going to pass it,” Hermione declared.

“I’m on my way home, Jack. No need to panic.”

“Mr. Malfoy please get inside as soon as possible. Wherever you are, I will come get you in the BMW.”

“We’re passing it,” she sighed.

“Tinted windows don’t stop bullets, Jack.”

“And there it goes.” Hermione waved her hand behind her.

“Sir, please.”

Draco worked his jaw and sighed heavily. “I’ll be at the Commissioner’s Office.”

“Very good, sir. We’ll be there in 20 minutes.”

Draco rolled his shoulders and pulled a U-turn into the Office parking lot, before coming to an abrupt full stop. He raised an eyebrow. “Happy now?”

Hermione only rolled her eyes and took a wobbly step out of the car. Draco raked a hand through his hair and followed her out, locking the doors behind him. She fumbles with the keys, but eventually she let’s them into the dark office made bright only by stripes of moonlight, quiet aside from the pages that ruffle as they pass them.

“We’re leaving in 20 minutes so don’t get too…comfortable,” he trailed off.

“Mhm,” she hummed, kicking of her heels and shimmying out of her skirt. They sat in puddles on the floor, an earring there, a pair of stockings there as she slowly made her way to the office.

“Hermione,” he said gruffly, clearing his throat.

“Hermione,” she said back, smiling over her shoulder as she walked slowly to her own office.

Draco swore under his breath, forcing himself to remember that she was drunk, that Jack would be here any minute, doing his absolute best to shove down feelings he thought he’d forgot.

“Hermione,” he said again, his voice harsh and heavy with things he could not have or say.

“Do you know they make castles from limes?”

He leaned on the door, knowing she didn’t really need a response, and waited for her to continue.

“They make it into a paste. It keeps the castle from falling apart…did you know that?” She nicked a pen from her desk and tapped it against her chin.

Draco cocked his head to the side, studying her in the white streaks of the moon. “I didn’t.”

“Even this,” she said quietly walking over to the window. “These window panes are made of sand blown into glass.”

“And diamonds are just coal under pressure, I get it. Nothing beautiful comes without pain.”

“Beautiful,” she grimaced. “I don’t want to be the kind of glass that filters pretty light through a church mural. I want to heat a greenhouse or sustain a chemical reaction in a lab.”

She looked at him with eyes full of defiance, such boldness that he didn’t know if he could stop himself if he didn’t look away. She was so solid, so sure. But there were years-old cracks in her armor and he had only himself to blame.

“Do you think I’m made of limes?” she said, all serious.

“You must be,” he said quietly, looking out the window. “I’ve never seen you fall.”

“You’ve never looked,” she said quietly stepping toward him, her lace of her bra causing shadows to dance across her chest. She was so close now, a warm hand on his chest, her brown eyes searching his own. She smiled.

“A man with so much vision…and somehow you still don’t see—” she stopped suddenly.

 _See what? See you? I’ve seen you every day for four years. In cups of coffee in faces on the street. What did I miss? What have I been missing?_ He wanted to shake her. He wanted to lock them in this room until he had heard it all, every breath, every sigh, every feeling. Four years of silence and no release, he needed release.

“Hermione,” he groaned pulling her into him, but she held a hand to his chest and suddenly would not meet his eyes.

“Jack’s here,” she nearly whispered. Slipping out of his arms, she shrugged on only her coat and walked purposefully into the night and for the second time in his life, he let her go.

***

Bellamy tossed and turned in his sleep, grunting and pulling up the sheets.

_You shouldn’t be here, it’s not…he’ll be back any minute._

_I don’t need you, anymore._

He twisted and turned, but he’d never been able to escape this memory. Why here? Why now?

_Bellamy, please. Just go._

_Just. Go._

Bellamy shook himself awake as the sound of sirens went wailing past his window. He ran a hand over his face and glanced around the dark room, confused. 4:05 his alarm clock glared bright red in the darkness. Something was wrong, he could feel it. He had felt it with Roma, losing her before she’d even said a word. He wrenched back his sheets and quickly slipped into a pair of jeans and a black Henley. He was just reaching for his badge when the phone rang.

“Captain Blake.”

“Captain, we need you to come down to Mary’s on fifth, armed robbery.”

“And what do you need me for?” Bellamy grunted pulling on his sneakers.

“Ms. Blake is here, sir? She’s got some theories about the case.”

“My sister.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m on my way.”

In all his years in the police force, Bellamy had never felt like this in pursuing a case. Not in a car chase or a shootout, not fighting his way out of a burning building. Sure, he’d been afraid at first, but then his nerve would turn to icy steel like they always did when he remembered that it wasn’t about him. That other lives were at stake. But tonight…tonight was different. His felt his blood boiling beneath his skin, a quiet rage settling into his bones, because the blow had come from someone close to him. When he pulled up to the crime scene his face held this eerie calm.

“Sir, sir!” Someone ran over to him, frantically. Mitch it looked like, but he was too busy scanning the crowd for a streak of blonde…

“Sir, your sister—”

“Is fine, or else you would have said otherwise. We can talk about her theories later.”

“Okay,” Mitch muttered, wringing his hands, his face still full of nervousness.

“Mitch.”

“Yes, sir.”

 “Disappear.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, again mostly to the floor. “Sir, I…this one really wasn’t my fault though.”

“Mitch!” Bellamy barked.

“Bellamy!” Octavia yelled from the back of an ambulance in the middle of the melee. She ran over when she saw him. “Thank god you’re here, they wouldn’t let me out of that ambulance and I literally don’t even have a scratch.”

“Where’s Clarke?” his eyes still scanned the scene, hiss deputies standing at attention as his glare raked over them.

“She’s probably still in there talking to police with Mary, who owns the shop.”

“Go back to the station, get whatever info you can out of our alleged killer.”

“You’re letting me do the interrogation?”

“On it! See you back at the station,” she yelled back at him already scurrying to a police car. “Mitch! You’re driving, let’s go!”

Bellamy clenched and unclenched his fists, stepping over broken glass and debris as he calmly walked into Mary’s Bakery. Clarke was bent over table, her signature braid coming undone, the wisps hanging delicate around her face. She was circling things on a napkin and pointing to different parts of the shop while the other deputies nodded and looked on.

“But how did you know it would be one guy this time?” one of them asked.

“Lincoln was an anomaly,” she said, firmly, standing up and capping her pen. “Because that was one of their only mistakes. Sending multiple guys to kill him and then to destroy his bar when they realized he wasn’t there, that wasn’t a case of inner city crime. It was too organized. Why Lincoln? Why no prints? It was one of the first things that tipped me off.”

“Who do you think is behind it?”

“I honestly don’t know, but I have some theories.”

Bellamy cleared his throat and everyone’s attention snapped to him. “Griffin, you’re done here. The rest of you get a statement from Mary if it’s not too hard for you to do your jobs.”

“Actually, I wanted to take some photos before everything gets moved?” Clarke asked earnestly, and Bellamy felt his temperature hit a fever pitch.

“Clarke,” he growled.

She swallowed. “Okay guys, uh, I’ll see you back at the station…” she muttered before following him out of the shop. The paramedics outside glanced at her sympathetically.

“Is this where I die?” she asked as he held his car door open for her.

He laughed, dark and throaty. “Well, you already cheated death once tonight, why not go for broke,” he grit out, slamming his own door as he got into his car. He reversed into the street, pulled a U-turn and sped away from the scene.

“Seatbelt. Now.”

“Bellamy—”

“No. Don’t even start,” he thundered, picking up speed on the empty city streets. “Why wouldn’t you tell me?! My sister, my responsibility, Clarke.”

“Bellamy, you wouldn’t even hear what I had to say! And then the next minute you act like nothing had happened, like I’d never spoken and we’d never fought or—”

He rounded a turn and she grabbed his arm to steady herself.

“You could’ve been hurt,” he snapped.

“Octavia was always at least a block away from the store. She was never in any danger.”

Bellamy turned sharply and pulled the car into an empty lot and shut off the engine. “You got lucky.”

“I was careful.”

“You could. Have. Died.”

“Would it have mattered?! God, I mean I caught our guy, Bellamy! And I risked my life to do it and STILL you act like I’m less competent than the other deputies. Like I’m some princess afraid to get dirty.”

“That is not what this is about—”

“Bullshit,” she spat, flinging open the car door.

“Clarke!” he yelled, following her out into the cool night. Every fiber in his being coiled, preparing for whatever came next. He clenched and unclenched his fists.

“Why did you even save me?” she yelled as he came around to her side of the car.

“What?”

“At the park. Why even save me? You obviously don’t think I’m worth the salary I’m collecting so—”

“Clarke,” he growled again, his tone warning as he clenched his jaw.

“No honestly! You’re the one who put me on this case.” She jabbed a finger in his chest and felt something unfurl in his chest. “You’re the one who made me work the festival, I mean, God, Bellamy, maybe YOU’RE THE ONE who’s trying to kill me!”

He glared at her, silent. “Get in the car.”

“No.” She looked up at him through her eyelashes, a hand still pressed to his chest. He let out a dry chuckle. “Clarke.”

“Bellamy, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this, but you can’t make me—”

His lips were on hers before she even realized what was happening. He pulled on her waist and she melted into him, her hands automatically reaching up and getting lost in his hair. He pushed her against the car trailing kisses down her jaw, biting on her neck and she moaned, needing him closer, needing more.

“Bellamy,” she groaned and he pulled away, looking down at her through hooded eyes.

“Get. In. The. Car.” He walked back to his side of the car, wordlessly and started the engine. They drove the rest of the way in silence. When they finally pulled into the police station, he was halfway to the building before he threw her the keys to his car.

“Go home. You…you had a long day.”

With that he pushed through the station doors into the only thing that still felt real. He was greeted by a chorus of “Captain! Captain, sir!” Of ringing telephones, shuffling papers and people hurrying from place to place as he walked calmly to his office and slammed his door on it all.

“Blake.”

He sighed. “Drake.”

“Octavia briefed me,” Draco muttered, his grey eyes alert but dark.

“Hm,” he grunted, sitting down at his desk. He rubbed his jaw and stared up at the evidence on his wall, the pictures linking connections he’d made, people he’d seen and Lincoln right in the center of it all.

“Bellamy…I think she’s right.”

“I know.”

***

The clock on Clarke’s phone had read 5:13 AM for what felt like ten minutes now. She wasn’t just going to stand out here forever, and she certainly wasn’t going home.

 _Who does he think he is? Think he can just kiss me into submission or something?_ Clarke traced her fingers over her bottom lip, remembering the warmth there and shook her head.

 _Get back to work, Rookie. You’ve still got something to prove._ She walked proudly through the station doors just like she did every other day. And maybe she peeked a glance at Bellamy’s office to see if he was in there, but the whole glass pane wall was covered in papers.

_I could probably help hi—_

“Hi.”

Clarke jumped “Jesus, Alice! What?!”

“Funny thing,” she laughed as if it were actually funny. “I’m actually supposed to make sure you don’t come in today.”

“Is that so?” Clarke widened her eyes.

“Yep! Captain’s orders,” Alice laughed. “Not that it’s all that funny, he said you had quite a stressful day? A bunch of near-death experiences? I think he’s a little concerned…” she trailed off, hugging her files a little tighter to her chest.

“Is that so?”

“Uh, yep!”

“Well good for him?” Clarke said brightly, sidestepping the woman to get her keycard from her desk. “Please let Octavia know I’ll need a debriefing after her interrogation.

“Officer Griffin, I don’t think—”

“He’s not my dad, Alice.” Clarke said with a smile as she walked away.

“Then…I’ll have to tell him you’re here,” Alice yelled after her.

“He’s not your dad, either!” Clarke yelled back, already halfway down the stairs on her way to the training room. She quickly changed into a t shirt and shorts in the locker room and was just hitting her stride pummeling a punching bag when she heard him behind her.

“Clarke,” he said her name like it had weight. Like it was pulling him down.

Clarke glanced up at the clock. “Wow, she made it to fifteen minutes without running to you? I didn’t think she had it in her,” she grunted, hitting the punching bag.

“Clarke, go home.”

“I’m not a princess,” she said back, punching the bag even harder. “I don’t need to be saved.”

“You don’t _need_ to be _here_.”

“Well, you _need_ to go back upstairs and figure out what’s left—”

“I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job,” he growled and she shivered. “And I don’t need you in my station. Not right now.”

“I can help.”

“No.”

“With all due respect, Bellamy, the last time you didn’t listen to me didn’t end well either.”

“Is that a threat?” he asked, his voice dangerously quiet, and stepped slowly toward her across the padded mat.  She turned around to look him in the eye. “I’ll fight you for it?”

He stopped suddenly in his path, “Are you familiar with how the law works?”

Clarke rolled her eyes, “Right here. I’ll wrestle you for it. You win, I go home. I win, I get to stay and help.”

“That’s exactly not how it works.”

“C’mon Captain,” she tossed her athletic gloves to the side. “I could be out of your hair in ten minutes.” _Who am I kidding? I’m already tangled in that mop, and there’s no getting out._

“You really don’t give up without a fight, do you.”

“No, sir.”

“Alright, come here.”

She stepped out to meet him on the mat and just narrowly evaded his grab. He smiled, “clever girl.”

They circled each other in silence, fists raised, each watching for weakness, waiting for the first move. Bellamy lunged first, like she knew he would, and she sidestepped his reach and pushing him to the ground. But he was too fast and caught her arm on his shoulder, pulling her down with him. Clarke scrambled to get above him, but he caught her by the waist and pinned her under him, his left hand reaching up to hold her wrists. He glanced up at the clock.

“3 minutes? I expected better of you, princess.” He grinned down at her, smug and without thinking she lifted her mouth to his, wiping that grin off his face. He lifted a hand to her cheek, deepening the kiss and with her hands now free she pushed on his shoulders and rolled herself on top of him, hooking her legs on either side of his waist, pinning his arms under her own. She smirked down at him, “clever girl, 1. Silly boy, 0.”

“You think I’m silly?” he asked under her, raising an eyebrow.

“I think it’s silly to be so serious,” she leaned down and ran her finger over his knit brows, calming them.

He caught her finger in his hand. “Someone has to be.”

“Do they?”

“Yes.”

He sat up suddenly so that she was still straddling him, but they were face to face. “I do.” He searched for eyes for recognition, but only found defiance.

“Not tonight.”

This time when she leaned in he was ready, his arms wrapping around her instinctually. He pulled kisses down the hollow of her throat.

“What would _the law_ advise for moments like this?” she murmured, breathless.

He pushed her down onto his growing erection, the friction between their jeans making her moan.

“You tell me,” he growled into her ear, lifting her easily and carrying her to the locker-room.

They tumbled against the lockers, hands tangled in hair. “For someone who doesn’t break the rules, you not so bad at this.” Clarke grinned, pulling off her shirt as he traced kisses down her chest. Bellamy roughly pulled off her jeans and trailed his calloused hands between her thighs feeling the warm wetness pooling there, rubbing circles that made her back arch.

He chuckled watching her shiver at his touch. “I’m better.”

In seconds, he yanked down her panties and pulled down his jeans, his hands frantic.

“Clarke,” he grunted, but she only ground herself against him, needing contact needing

“Bellamy,” she moaned as he slid into her. She lifted a leg around his waist and he pulled her to him, grinding into her, their breaths mingling with every thrust.

“Clarke,” he groaned just as someone started to walk down the steps, whistling as they went.

He stilled his movement and Clarke whined. He reached up and held a hand over her mouth, his eyes warning. He started thrusting into her again, slow and deliberate, his eyes closing. When he moaned Clarke clasped a hand over his own mouth, but he kept moving, the full length of him sliding into her with agonizing slowness.

“Captain?”

_Mitch._

Clarke’s giggled, muffled behind Bellamy’s hand.

“Mitch!” Bellamy yelled without breaking stride, his hand reaching down to rub circles around her clit.

“Yes, sir!”

“Disappear!”

“Yes, sir.”

As soon as he was gone, Bellamy upped the tempo, their bodies crashing together in unison. Clarke clutched at him, warmth rising in her stomach, and whimpered. Bellamy growled, forcing her attention back to his face.

“Clarke.”

“Yes-s, yes,” she muttered, half-coherent. He circled his thumb around her clit faster and faster.

"Come," he whispered into her hair.

That was all she needed. Her whole body exploded with electric pulses as she muffled her scream in his shoulder. She slumped against him, their chests heaving.

“Clarke, I—”

Her phone buzzed with a new text and her cheeks reddened when she realized it was from Octavia.

_It’s bigger than we thought._

***


	2. And Bear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little more Dramione for ya... and much more to come!!!  
> What happened at Oxford?  
> Why did Draco leave?  
> WHO'S THE MURDERER??!  
> Tune in, and we just might find an answer ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a preview of a chapter I'm writing to gauge interest. If it's trash I'll stop writing it. If it's not, I'll try to have the next one up in a week. It may be shorter than the first really long one, but if there's interest I'll keep 'em coming.  
> Lmk if you want to solve this mystery!!!!  
> Xx -LeveeohSAH

_There was sunlight streaming crisp and clean behind Hermione’s eyelids and slowly she smiled, because she already knew where she was._

 

_‘Don’t open your eyes,’ he’d said to her and part of her honestly didn’t think she would ever open them again if he’d asked. She laughed brightly and grasped at the arm around her waist inching her slowly closer to him._

 

_When Draco kissed her lips again she opened her eyes to find a soft flower dangling in front of her her. ‘Tiger lily?’ she muttered, her voice still drunk with sleep._

_Draco grinned and tucked it behind her ear, ‘For your lion’s mane. To remember me by.’_

_She laughed, bright and sunny. ‘My tiger?’_

_‘Yours. Always.’_

The sunlight that greeted Hermione as she lay in a foreign bed in a foreign home was tinged grey by a sky that was threatening rain. Everything in her mind wanted to reject the clean white sheets around her, the mahogany wood paneling of the room and reach for the nearest heavy object to wield as a weapon. But she only sighed and reached for the old T-shirt laid out at the foot of the bed. She knew where she was, and there was nothing to smile about.

 

A card fell from the T-shirt as she tugged it on. It read

**_“Breakfast is in the kitchen…”_ **

 

_Fuck. Did I sleep with Draco? We..we couldn’t have._

She trailed her fingers over the ellipses, frowning, and flipped the card to the back.

**_“If something had happened…you’d remember._ **

**_I promise.”_ **

Hermione scoffed, but heat rose in her cheeks just the same. She walked through the hallway tentatively, the big glass windows showing a killer overhead view of the city and Hermione whistled her praise. Just then a huge black mass barreled off the couch and barked it’s welcome.

A whistle rang out from what seemed to be the kitchen and the furry creature took off running. Hermione decided to follow it if only for the breakfast smells that seemed to be coming from the same direction. With his back to her Draco flipped the warm batter in his pan and rubbed the furry creature’s head with another. Hermione watched in strange awe as steam wafted off the growing piles of bacon and eggs on the kitchen island, inexplicably drawn she pulled out a stool and observed.

“Good boy,” Draco muttered and laughed at his companion’s answering bark.

“Good morning,” Hermione muttered around the pancake she barely realized she had shoved into her mouth.

“Is it?” Draco mused, dropping another pancake onto the stack in front of her.

“Uh, wha- what do you mean?”

Draco glared at his watch and pet the dog-and-something-much-larger hybrid that was circling his legs. “I was supposed to be gone before you were awake. Didn’t want you to be… startled.”

“I am not-”

The creature barked, loud and happy and Hermione’s force clattered loudly against her plate. Her cheeks grew red as Draco failed to hide a smirk.

“Well that’s literally a small bear!”

“Yes, you are, aren’t you, Bear,” Draco cooed at the furry black mass licking his hand.

“You named your dog 'Bear'.” She deadpanned, somehow not surprised.

“I named my dog Black; family name, but even family weren’t always welcome in the Malfoy home. It soon became Black Bear, for, somewhat obvious reasons.” Bear barked and jumped onto the chair next to Hermione, his tail beating wildly against the seat. “Now he’s just Bear.”

“Bet you call him Black when he’s being extra rowdy," Hermione said quietly poking at the plate of eggs in front of her.

“He’s only Black when he’s exceptionally good.” He turned his eyes on her for a long moment and she swallowed in the uncomfortable silence. _You were not a good person_ , she reminded herself. _You ARE not a good person,_ she tried again, but despite all the evidence she’d gathered since meeting Draco, she couldn’t will that to be true.

Draco rolled up his cuffs and loosened the tie around his neck. “Please, don’t do that,” he said tightly.

“Don’t tell me what to do.” Hermione said too loudly, but held her head a little higher. She was nervous sitting in this crisp, white home in Draco’s t-shirt, eating... pancakes of all things. It felt so domestic, so much like something that should have been normal to her in another life and she didn’t know how long she could keep pretending like that was okay.

Draco narrowed his eyes. “You’re doing it right now. That thing where your eyes pull away from me and your stubborn brow knits up like you’ve made a decision _you_ don’t even like.”

“Don’t...tell me what I look like.”

“You look beautiful.”

“Draco,” Hermione pushed away from her seat and stood hands balled at her side, angry, but mostly herself. She hated how much she loved this. She loved talking to him half-serious, half-aloof, pretending but always always falling back into his arms, but it couldn't work today. Her head was still pounding from whatever drink(s) had erased last night from memory and she just couldn’t rack her brain for ways to decide if words like 'I love you,' actually meant anything at all.

Draco pulled his grey suit-jacket off the chair and shrugged it on; a perfectly-tailored fit.

“I’m not going to fight you,” he started, pouring out a glass of water and sliding it in her direction. “I’ve never been very good at that.”

“You've dealt more than your fair share of pain, don't worry.”

Draco scratched his jaw and braced his hands on the kitchen island. “I used to think that was your favorite thing, you did it so much. Fighting with words, fighting ignorance with knowledge. That search for truth is who you are.”

Draco tossed Bear a piece of bacon which he caught in mid-air and grabbed himself a green apple. “Here’s some truth for the both of us.” He stepped toward her, speaking evenly as if talking to a business partner or a client and not a hung-over woman with wild eyes wrinkling his t-shirt.

“I never knew what you really wanted from us, from me, so I’ve just been honest,” Draco laughed.  “Because truth’s been your favorite thing.”

Hermione took a step back. She could already smell his intoxicating cologne in the air. She had gotten so good at playing unaffected, but all those years of training couldn’t save her today. She took another step back and nearly jumped the cool, chrome surface of the fridge behind her. There was nowhere left to go.

"Yeah? What's yours Obi-Wan? Is it women? Maybe it's just Jan," Hermione held her chin as if she were actually considering the thought.  "There's really something about her."

“How inconvenient for us both."

"Oh, yeah? why's that?"

"Because you're my favorite thing.”

“Draco-”

“It is taking everything in me not to touch you. If you say my name again I will slip and I will not regret it.”

Hermione, breathing heavy, used the part of her brain that still worked to lock her hands behind her back. She was afraid of where they might wander, what they might do.

Draco closed his eyes and sighed and when he took a step back, the breath Hermione had been unwillingly holding ran out of her chest. “I’m glad you have Clarke,” he continued as if he hadn’t noticed. “And I’m glad you’re here in my life, in my home.”

"Hm," Hermione grunted.

Draco drummed his fingers against the fridge. “But we can't be friends.”

_What?_

“Wait, Draco-"

He raised his hands as if in defeat and he turned to leave.

Hermione blinked in confusion, her breath coming in angry spurts. _How? How did this happen again?_

“So that’s it?!” she yelled stomping after him. “You’re going to run. Again.”

Draco stopped before stepping into the fucking elevator in his fucking house. “I’ll see you tonight,” he said evenly, again. His voice betrayed no emotion.

“Fuck you.”

In the elevator his jaw clenched and unclenched, but his face was a cool mask. But it was the eyes, angry and heavy and so openly...hungry, that made her breath catch,  but then the doors closed and he was gone.

Hermione nearly screamed, but reached like a madwoman for something to throw after him. Her hands found a weighty vase and it was nearly out of her hand before she pulled it back. The twinkling crystal held an arrangement of gorgeous, fat, green leaves, but they were hiding something between them. Annoyed but intrigued, Hermione pulled back the leaves and found Lion’s Tail buds sprouting bright orange around a single Tiger Lily. Without warning she bit her lip to keep from crying and sank to the floor. Bear whimpered and padded over to her. When he laid on her knee she rubbed his head absently, suddenly not feeling so alone. Still, when she finally got ready for work she couldn’t tell you how long she'd laid there, on the floor of Draco’s apartment, staring up at the ceiling, keeping company with Lion's and tiger lilies, and Bear.


	3. TONIGHT, THEN.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Octavia stumble upon something new. Hermione taps into her inner bad bitch. Everyone's fed up. SO MUCH DIALOGUE.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't even proof-read this one thoroughly. I just wanted to get it out of my drafts and into the universe. I'm making these chapters shorter. Idk if anyone even wants to read them, but I can get more out quicker if I do just one or two POVs a chapter. ANYWAY, were that much closer to solving this ~mYsTeRy~ oooohhhh.
> 
> Hope you enjoy and aren't as fed up with me as Clarke and Hermione are with literally everything.
> 
> Xx, Leveeohsah

**HERMIONE**

Hermione walked briskly up the City Hall steps as confident as was to be expected. She pushed through the doors with a black coffee in one hand and a structured purse and iphone in the other. Well, maybe it was better described as a men’s work-bag, but it was durable and the best thing she could find in a rush in Draco’s home. She had him to thank, or to blame, for most of her ensemble today; the over-sized white T-shirt she’d tucked into last night’s jeans was the same one she’d worn this morning and after a grubby dry-shower she and it seemed much more ready to face the world. The dark grey blazer she’d thrown over it had been a last minute touch and she was glad for it. The rolled cuffs and sharp lapels distracted from the jeans and flats quite well which is why she was power-walking with confidence into this soulless office, not giving a fuck about anyone’s opinion, to do her fucking job.

 

Seconds after entering the office door the cacophony of  “Hermione I need a signature” and “Hermione, could you work your magic on the copier again” died down to a dull roar. Mostly because she slammed her office door on it. The mountain of papers in her  **For Review** bin didn’t make her feel much better, but she welcomed the distraction.

 

“Filed complaint, invitation to the Women’s Council Leaders Town Hall, and building permit for..” Hermione huffed as leafed through the pages on her desk. “One Draco Malfoy.”

 

_ You’re my favorite thing. _

Hermione tried to shake the memory away.  _ What a saccharine thing to say,  _ she thought to herself.  _ Is that how we used to be? How I used to be? _

Hermione dropped her head in her hands and closed her eyes.  _ It really doesn’t matter, does it. _

 

With a sigh she reached across the paper mountain on her desk for her beeping phone. She scrolled through texts from Clarke, Jan, and none from the one person she was looking for. The new message was from...Ron? It simply said Happy Thanksgiving with a voice file attached.

She pressed play and held the phone to her ear.

 

“Happy Thanksgiving Hermioneeeeee,” she heard Ron yell in his unmistakable drunken garble. 

“I know were, were late,” Harry chimed in next. “But we don’t have Thanksgiving in England, do I?”

“Dunno, do you?”

They both laughed and Hermione rolled her eyes, but smiled in spite of herself.

“Anyway we love ya, so save us some of those pies your american friends love. They have so many pies, don’t they?” Ron asked, incredulous before Harry burst out laughing. “What? What is it?” Now they were both laughing, Harry whispered something she couldn’t make out, but then both idiots counted to three and yelled, “AMERICAN PIE!” *click*

Hermione tossed her phone back on her desk with a smile.  _ Well, at least they’re alive- _

 

She was interrupted by a tentative head peeking past her door. “Hermione?”

 

“Fuck. No. Jan.” Hermione braced her arms against the desk before continuing. “I just need five minutes to settle in. You come back in five minutes, maybe I don’t throw my stapler at you, okay?”

 

“Um, okay?” Jan muttered, slowly backing out the door.

“With coffee! Come back with black COFFEE.” Hermione added before Jan jumped and shut the door.

Hermione sipped her own grande cup of joe and took a closer look at the permit request in front of her. There was something off about it, but with the number of different writs that came through these doors, she didn’t know why.

* **_buzz_ ** * she looked down at her phone, hoping to find another message from Ron, but only rolled her eyes.

**_Hey, I got coffee. Also the Commissioner wanted you to be in his office in… 9 minutes ago. -Jan._ **

Hermione tossed her phone back on the table and rolled out her shoulders feeling at war with everything around her. With a sigh she reached down and pulled a pair of snake-skin Louboutins out of her desk drawer, slid them on with ease and strolled out into the frantic office energy. For a moment everything stopped. They all looked at her with such hopeful eyes.

“Sorry, all.” Hermione scanned the large room, being sure her gaze was met and her voice heard by each and every one of them. “I will not be cleaning up your messes today.” 

 

With that, after meeting no one’s pleading stares, she walked into the commissioner’s office without knocking, four whole inches above the bullshit thanks to a classic pair of Loubs. 

 

“You wanted to see me, sir?” Hermione said flatly as she braced her hands on the back of a chair set before his desk. She always thought he looked so small and frail while sitting, though he was nearly six feet tall.

 

“Yes, ah, Hermione...Quite the name you’ve got,” he said slowly, his attention drawn elsewhere. His eyes flicked from one side of the Ark Times paper to the other; between the crossword and sudoku. Hermione nodded slightly, but did not answer. There was a good chance that despite running this office, he did not even know who she was. Reading upside-down, Hermione blinked at the familiar heading on the paper below his inked-up Ark Times before her eyes snapped back to his face. And then Hermione heard that words she’d never thought he’d say to her.

“Hermione… I believe I’m going to need your help.”

 

**CLARKE**

 

Clarke slammed the front door of the apartment and slowly lumbered through the entryway before belly-flopping, face-down onto the couch. She could feel Octavia’s words swimming through her head as sleep threatened behind her eyes:

 

_ “I don’t think it’s just Draco,” Octavia said gravely over the steeple of her hands, making half-turns in Bellamy’s desk-chair. It was just the two of them in the small office, since Bellamy was doing a follow-up questioning of the suspect. _

_ “What do you mean?” Clarke said, running her hands through her hair in exasperation. It had taken them so much to get this far; what else could there be? _

_ Octavia rubbed her temples and sighed. “The suspect we apprehended is Joshua Applegate,” she slid a glossy image across the desk. In the photo Joshua was seen hurrying from another crime scene; a few meters away from an unsuccessful car-hijacking that had taken place near Ark Museum months ago. Bellamy could be seen in the background hauling a man into his patrol car. _

 

_ “He looks scared.” Clarke scanned the photo for some clue she must be missing.  _

_ “But not guilty scared. Just somewhere he shouldn’t be,” Octavia added. She leaned back in her chair, waiting for Clarke’s next question and sighed heavily when she finally did. _

_ “Who is he?” _

_ “Petty crime, robbery mostly, one case of identity theft… He’s a real tough guy right up till the moment he gets caught. Then he crumples like a wet bag.” _

_ Clarke glanced up, confused. “Shouldn’t he be in the system, then?” _

_ Slowly, Octavia placed another photo beside the first. “His father is Judge Ellis.” _

_ “Shit.” _

_ “Yep.” _

_ Clarke stared at the image for so long the faces seem to blur together. _

_ O sighed, again. “You should go home, Rookie. We’ve got a big night ahead of us.” _

_ “Hm?” Clarke muttered, without turning from the photo. When she finally looked up Octavia was staring at her gravely. _

_ “Why does it feel like the more we find out, the more questions are left? In any case tonight marks Draco’s first public appearance since announcing his run for mayor. Ellis will definitely be there. He always takes his daughter as his date to the Ark Ball.” Octavia made a face. _

 

_ Clarke pinched the bridge of her nose. “Jeez, I completely forgot.” She felt a sigh coming over he muscles and reached to gather her things before she ended up napping right there on the floor. “I’ll be ready.” _

_ “Good because it’s invite-only, so your on your own. NOw, cmon, I’ll drive you home.” _

_ Clarke groaned and fell back into her chair. She looked again at the black-and-white photo of Judge Ellis and his skeevy son. They seemed to be laughing as a woman turned away from them to get into a limo. _

_ “Who’s his daughter?” Clarke asked finally, just as Octavia was walking out the door. _

_ O rolled her eyes. “Janus Ellis.” _

 

Clarke startled awake at the sound of heavy boots on her hardwood floor, her hand immediately reaching for the nearest weapon.

 

“You keep a gun in your couch cushions. Really.”

Clarke rubbed her sleep-drunk eyes to make out the general silhouette of a tall, blonde Englishman. She groaned. “What do you want, Posh Spice-”

Draco chuckled, a dark smooth sound in his throat. “Just dropping off your dress for tonight. Figured you might need some... help.”

“How did you-”

“I own the building,” he answered as he poured a glass of water and set it beside the couch.

Clarke nodded after a moment. “Hermione.”

Draco clenched his jaw, but seemed otherwise unperturbed. Clarke rolled her eyes. She was a cop; she could play that game.

“How do you know her?”

“Same as you do, I suppose. Old school friends.” Draco looked away thoughtfully as if remembering. He did not sit, but he didn’t seem ready to leave either.

“Friends, huh?” she pushed.

Draco smiled a little bitterly and Clarke imagined there was a whole story behind that smile she would never know. “We used to be. For a time.”

“And now?”

“Our... relationship is different.”

Clarke scoffed. “Business or pleasure?”

Draco smirked and scratched his jaw. “Politics.”

He tapped his hand once against the garment bag strung over the old, beat-up armchair. “Tonight, then,” Draco said with a small, devilish smile, but his tone held a note of finality Clarke couldn’t ignore. She only nodded back at him; gave him a weak smile of her own. “Tonight.”

 

Clarke couldn’t tell when he left, but she must have fallen asleep soon after. For hours she dreamt of black-and-white images and sharp brown eyes, and a London much grayer than she remembered.


	4. Sleuth Sisters & Blood Brothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honestly just read it lol, much is revealed!!! For some reason the formatting wouldn't configure so nothing is indented or anything and weird stuff but I hope you'll still like it! Stay tuned for the next post: Let's Have A Ball  
> -Leveeohsah

***

There was a hushed, excited chatter running through the station like a current. Bellamy could feel it even as he sipped brown coffee behind his closed office door. Though the glass window was covered in leads and erasable marker he could see some of the cadets through the cracks, trying on shoes at their desks, holding up their hair in odd styles; a small-town high-society affair seemed to be the only order of business today. Bellamy rolled his eyes, but found the corner of his mouth rising. It wasn’t every day this kids got to go to a ball.

“You sure we can’t just skip it?” he tossed over his shoulder between sips of coffee.

Draco sighed from his perch on the edge of the desk, his arms folded over his chest. “You can’t miss the Policeman’s Ball. You’re… a policeman.”

“Days like these, I prefer to forget.”

Draco rolled his shoulders and waited. Those were heavy words.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“You don’t have to come,” Draco said back, his voice playful in spite of everything. Of course they had to go. A captain and a candidate for mayor? Their absence would surely be noted and that wouldn’t be good for morale...among other things. “Scared, Blake?” Draco teased as Bellamy snapped back to attention.

“One wrong move, and the whole thing goes tits up, Drake. Can we just think about this for a second?”

Draco sighed and set down his own coffee cup. “Look, I appreciate you coming to my aid, but they don’t know who you are. If this goes... ‘tits up’ you’re safe. Everyone is safe.”

“You asking me to bail?”

“I’m saying you. Don’t. Have. to. Come.” Bellamy watched the snooty blonde heiress pick up his duffel bag from the desk-chair and prop the office door open, waiting. “So… coming?”

Bellamy huffed and pushed his way through the office door and for once, Mitch and crew didn’t shit their pants at seeing his angry face. Probably because they were too caught up in tieing each other’s ties to see him at all. “It’s like a middle grade dance in here,” Bellamy muttered as he marched through the middle of the chatter and downstairs with Draco in tow behind him.

“It must be so hard to see them growing up,” Draco laughed behind him.

Bellamy made a face in the dim light of the basement, but kept walking. He tried not to look at the mat that had been used for much more than training last night and coughed awkwardly as he slid his keycard into the door on the far wall. Draco seemed not to notice or care, or at least he pretended to. The door buzzed open and he flicked on the lights while Draco made a bee-line for the back row.

Bellamy ran his hand along a metal countertop, thoughtful once more.

“What is this, Moody’s Point?” Draco scowled at him as he rounded the corner, clicking a round into place on a handgun, before returning to the back row. He always said handguns fired better, but as long as they’d been doing this, Bellamy couldn’t remember Draco more than twice firing a round.

“It’s just…” Bellamy began as he fingered a handle of a shotgun, “this feels like a hell of a lot of trouble to go through for a girl.”

Draco slid another round into place in the cold silence that followed, and then everything was quiet once more. And then Draco laughed, deep and rich and like he hadn’t in a long time.

“What?” Bellamy balked.

“You think I’m going through a lot of trouble for a girl?” Draco shook his head as he locked the long gun silencer into place.

“Don’t.”

“This from the man who stood at the hospital bed of the woman who cheated on him with someone from her...what was is it-” he paused, scratching his head with the gun in mock thought. “HER. YOGA. TRIBE.”

“Drake.”

Draco held the barrel between his palms as if he was praying, “Oh, sun salutations. Oh, Azgeda for life!”

“Draco!”

“No, no, don’t ‘Draco’ me.” Draco jabbed a finger at him and somehow it felt more lethal than the gun. “You, reciting lovely, Greek poetry to Roma like some Arse Poetica. Yeah mate, you’re a real Titan, doomed to live your life in a pit of your own making.” Draco scoffed, incredulous. “You, afraid to be Sisyphus, to live and love in vain; even more afraid to win. YOU, barking like a wounded Cerberus snapping at anyone who dares to get close.”

“Alright, enough!” Bellamy growled to no avail.

Draco shoved his hand into Bellamy’s chest. Bellamy pushed him off, but it was Draco’s turn to stand his ground and he caught Bellamy with a jab right beneath his ribs. Bellamy countered with a punch of his own to the shoulder and the men circled each other like wild dogs in a ring, Draco still barking in anger. “ _You_ , the man who’s spent his whole life with _less_ , trying to make something out of nothing, carrying myths and tragedies in his back pocket and still you cannot find it in yourself to _believe_ that this is worth it? To believe in love?” Draco deadpanned as if that were the craziest thing he had heard all year.

Bellamy grunted and went in for a tackle that Draco narrowly evaded, but at the last moment he clipped the blonde devil in the lip.

Draco wiped a line of blood from his mouth and scoffed. “Such a poet with your mythology, but there are emotions in those pages you won’t even let yourself comprehend.” Bellamy lunged again, wildly and Draco caught him with a punch to the jaw. Both men regained their footing, heaving, Draco’s gun on the floor between them. He was the first to drop his fists.

“Roma cheated on you and then you watched her die in a hospital bed not three miles from here and that’s heavy. You loved her even at the end and I’ll somehow I get that.”

Bellamy lunged again, but Draco held him at bay with an arm at his throat. They snapped at each other and growled, but there could be no winner in this fight.

“I am no Atlas, Blake…” Draco grunted, pushing Bellamy back off a hard shove. “But, she,” he laughed, breathless. “She is my world.”

Bellamy closed his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh before slinking off to the wall.

            “Just. Tell. Her,” he nearly spat.

            Still breathing heavily, Draco pulled a cigarette from his pocket that he dragged, but did not light. Despite his cool demeanor he seemed to be carrying something heavy in his chest, and even unlit, the cig seemed to be helping. He laughed again, but the sound had lost its life. “She’s apples to me, now.”

Bellamy bent to retrieve the gun on the floor. “What the fuck does that even mean?”

Draco smiled, distant again. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

“Captain!” Mitch burst through the door, hands covered in paper and ink. Without looking, both men raised their guns to him and waited for the echo of his shriek and scampering feet to disappear.

Draco smiled, equal parts mirth and mischief.

Bellamy locked the barrel on his gun into place with a deep sigh. “So what’s the fucking plan?”

 

***

When Clarke finally pried her eyes open, she found Hermione on the couch next to her, one hand holding a half-drunk blue gatorade, bent straw bobbing in the bottle. The other hand was stroking Clarke’s hair, but her eyes were trained on the glossy image in her lap.

“What...what’s that?” Clarke muttered, still fighting the lingering sleep behind her eyes as the image swam into view.

Hermione kept silent as Clarke struggled sit up and handed her the half-empty gatorade. After she drank another quarter of the bottle, Hermione handed her the picture and got herself a glass of water.

Clarke rubbed her eyes and took a closer look at the picture. “Oh.”

“Yep.”

“Well I’m sure there’s an explanation.”

“Yeah? Why don’t we start with yours.”

Just then the front door banged open behind which was an excited Octavia who brandished a bag of Nacho Taco and a garment bag of her own with equal ferocity.

“Clarke!” she yelled.

“Octavia, um now’s not a good time.”

“I think this is the perfect time,” Hermione chimed as she slapped another photo on the coffee table. It was of Judge Ellis,  “Both of you. Explain.”

“Hermione-” Clarke started, but Octavia cut her off.

“That’s Judge Ellis and his son, Josh Applegate who was apprehended at the crime scene last night… and who as of” Octavia paused to check her watch, “two hours ago is no longer in the custody of Ark City police.”

“What?” Clarke yelled.

“Not enough evidence. Never enough evidence for the rich kids,” Octavia shook her head.

“Applegate?” Hermione repeated confused.

“Yeah, the parents had a nasty divorce before the judge remarried.”

Hermione picked up the picture of the smiling family again. “I’ve seen him around the office so many times and I never…what the hell?” Hermione squinted at the photo. “That’s. Jan.”

“Janus Ellis?” Octavia continued calmly. “That’s his daughter.”

“No that’s my assistant! She started in the position a couple months after I did...weird.”

“Think she’s spying on you?” Octavia laughed.

“No, she’s incompetent,” Hermione said without malice, already lost in thought. “But what do any of them have to do with this?” She held up the other photo Clarke had seen her staring at so intently. In it a tall, man seemed to be walking briskly with a full duffel bag in one hand, a pistol in the other, and a building burning behind him. He had darker hair and was wearing sunglasses, but there was no mistaking him. It was Draco.

“This is the only spy I’ve seen today. And what was this doing in your bag? What are you guys hiding?” Hermione stamped her foot and Clarke rolled her eyes.

“Please, how do _you_ even know Draco?? Why all this concern about whether he lives or dies?”

“OKAY. OKAY. Rapidfire round of truth. Everybody gets the truth, everybody’s happy,” Octavia said calmly, holding up her hands as if she were approaching too seething bulls. “Hermione? You first?”

Hermione sighed. “Fine. We went to school together.”

Clarke found her eyes rolling again. “Fine!” Hermione yelled. “We dated.”

“How long?”

“Two years. I’ve known him for...Merlin, more than ten.”

“You love him?”

“I did.”

Clarke stared at her shoes. “I slept with Bellamy.”

“WHAT?” Octavia yelled.

“I might have slept with Draco. Just slept. NO funny business.”

“Funny business? How old are you?”

“Not old. Just English.”

“GUYS. BACK TO THE ISSUE AT HAND.” Octavia snapped at them.

“We think the attack last night, and at the warehouse, M Co., the library, they’re all connected,” Clarke said evenly, waiting on her reaction.

“Connected to Draco.”

“Yes. We think it’s a threat because he’s running for mayor.”

“That was only just announced.”

“But he’s been trying to get the permits to build this mystery complex downtown for over a year. If he’s being honest about ‘changing things’ in the city, he’s a threat to a LOT of people in power. And his money means he can’t be kept quiet with hush money.” Clarke looked at Octavia, but the girl only shook her head. “We think he got wind of the City Council doing some dirty shit, no offence, H, but we don’t know what it is.”

“It doesn’t really matter does it? There’s a threat on his life and they’re going to act. Tonight. Ugh, that idiot. Why did he have to run for mayor? It just pissed them off even further.”

“Yeah I know. Which is why tonight I’m going to--”

“You’re going to what, Clarke? Get yourself killed? No. Here’s what WE’RE going to do.”

“Hermione-” O cut in, but Hermione just shook her head.

“Joshua Applegate is your only thread in this whole mess and you let him go. ...He’s also my date for tonight….Commisioner’s orders.”

“Ugh, okay. Press him for whatever info you can. Ask him about the downtown permit. Bring up the bakery robbery and see if he flinches and just...just don’t let him out of your sight, okay?”

“Keep your eyes on Jan, too. The Councilmen won’t lift a finger; not with this many eyes on them,” Hermione said with a nod more to herself than anyone else.

Clarke unzipped the garment bag to find the softest, long-sleeved, backless, deep verdant gown lounging beautifully despite all the chaos around it. She ran her hand over the delicate fabric and muttered, “What the fuck are we doing?”

Hermione put down the strange photo of Draco she’d been so fixated on and looked them in the eye. “We’re saving him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally going to make this one long chapter with the Ball in it as well but i couldnt wait to get this up and I really want to take my time with that chapter. It may be a part 1 and part 2 or a really long chapter, but it will be pretty long lol. MUCH WILL TRANSPIREEEE.
> 
> Hope you enjoy! ;)
> 
> -Leveeohsah


	5. Let's Have A Ball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not quite in time for Harry's 20th anniversary, but so the ball begins, at least part 1 does. There's a lot of content but I hope things make a little more sense now.  
> Now that you know most of what you need to, get ready for Part 2, the most devilish chapter yet (ack im literally blushing).
> 
> Also, be advised: In the gamble of life or death, do try to remember who's playing the game ;)

The scene Clarke strolled into after climbing the Ark Museum steps was a thing to behold. Small-town or no, the entry-hall of the building had been nearly cleared of all its artifacts so that only the marionette dinosaur skeletons held their ranks above. The rest of the room was cast in the soft-light of the chandelier hanging in the very middle of the ceiling. Clarke nodded at the cadets nearest her, noted Alice toting her usual uneasy grin and smiled as best she could at them. With another glance her eyes found Bellamy and Draco clinking their tumblers and sipping quietly on dark liquor. She swallowed. _So...it was going to be that kind of night._

Their eyes seemed to reach her as soon as she saw them, but then they’d had the advantage, perhaps the reason the cadets near the door were still staring.

Draco’s gifted dress was of dark hunter green, with small glittering emeralds and amethysts woven into the delicate bodice and hugged her body like a glove. The evergreen gown slightly trumpeted around her high, black heels; perhaps over the top for at least for her own tastes, but she couldn’t help but note that Bellamy’s whiskey went down a little harder at the sight. The whorl of jewels cut into her dress marked a path from Clarke’s torso, twisting all the way to her feet. Her gaze returned to Bellamy who was now staring openly at the long sliver of skin that darted between the cut-open seam that nearly reached the top of her thigh. Clarke shrugged slightly, knowing he’d catch the movement. For this last torture he could only blame the blonde devil at his side.

Then Draco was smiling wryly at him, before beginning his saunter toward her and Clarke didn’t think there was a single thing in the world that could fetter that serpentine grace. That is until Hermione sidled out beside her, hands in her pockets, her siren-red mouth parting slightly as she languidly took in the scene. Clarke could see the moment when his breath caught; could feel the way his eyes picked up on those cherished Louboutins, the expertly-tailored midnight black pants that hugged her legs tightly, the softened tendrils of red-brown hair that lay silent at the crown of her head, but draped openly like a lion’s mane behind each ear and over each shoulder. And for all the eye-rolls she could muster, Clarke could not have stopped his eyes from travelling across the sharp-cut, oversized dark blazer that plunged over her open chest. There was no doubt he’d remember it well long after this night. Perhaps Draco remembered it already, it’s black velvet lapels summoning memories as they skirted over Hermione’s breasts, held together by nothing more than a single, black button just above her navel. Hermione smirked without even looking at him. Of course he’d remember. It was his.

After a moment’s hesitation Draco smoothly joined a conversation between a few uptown socialites that was happening on his left. A waiter, seeing the girls empty palms, came over and offered Clarke and Hermione a drink. Clarke smiled at him and sipped from the bubbling flute. Hermione downed her own in one gulp as the server watched in awe.

“Keep them busy, won’t you?” she muttered to Clarke just as Bellamy began striding over to meet her. “Gotta go find a rich boy with daddy issues.”

Clarke raised her eyebrows and Hermione sighed. “You know which one I mean.” With that she was off, taking no notice of the eyes that trailed after her into the main ballroom. Clarke only sipped her champagne with a smile and watched her go, counting all the while…

_4...3...2...1._

“You look...rested,” Bellamy said, gruffly.

“I slept,” she said back, equally curt.

“Look, I-”

“Don’t have to talk about it...and, it won’t happen again.”

Bellamy scratched his jaw and folded his arms. “Wow, uh...okay-”

“There’s so much hidden truth out there under piles and piles of dirt,” she muttered looking up at the dinosaur dangling above them. “Then suddenly you dig it up, put the pieces together, and suddenly it all makes sense.”

Bellamy stepped closer, nearly whispering in her ear. “Look I don’t know why you’re talking in riddles, but you don’t need to be here tonight…. I’d rather you not be here, tonight.”

Clarke laughed. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with that huge development lot downtown, would it?” She took another swig of her champagne, eyes still trained on the Tyrannosaurus Rex above her, but she couldn’t help but notice how every muscle in the man beside her tensed.

“Clarke-” Bellamy grit out.

“Saw your notes in my file,” Clarke said lightly as she downed her flute. “I get it, no one wants to work with the rookie. Don’t worry, though. I can do this on my own.” She took a single step toward the ballroom before Bellamy gripped her arm. He was so close to her, so fast. Just like in the parking lot, just like last night, and his brown eyes were suddenly all she could see.

For a moment he just stared at her. Just stared and shook his head so a springy brown curl fell into his eyes. “What are you doing?” he whispered fiercely, his eyes searching hers for answers.

Clarke gently tucked the curl behind his ear and gave her boss a thousand watt smile. “I’m having a ball,” she whispered back before turning on her heel, never looking back as she strode away.

***

Draco watched from the corner bar as Hermione laughed brightly at the words of one Joshua Applegate. As in _the_ Josh Applegate, world’s most boring excuse for a man. He rolled an ice-cube around on his tongue as she placed a hand on his arm positively _gushing_ about whatever rubbish had erupted from his idiotic mouth and almost didn’t catch her subtle nod at Clarke who was circling the room with another cadet; Mitch by the looks of it who seemed simply enthralled to be in her presence. Another man might have said she was just glancing around the room, admiring the scene around her, but he’d been doing this too long and he knew Hermione. Knew her better than she’d ever like to admit. Draco bit down on the cube in his mouth and smiled as she brushed something from the corner of Joshua’s mouth. Maybe he didn’t know her as well as he thought.

            He plucked a toothpick from the cup and placed it in his mouth; winked at the girl behind the bar and began circling the room himself, one eye always trained on the red-lipped woman at the center of it all.

            “Clarke,” he said with a soft nod when he finally caught up with her and her companion.

            “Draco,” she said back, her voice guarded though her eyes were bright.

            “...and Mitch,” Mitch said after a moment and when neither of them acknowledged him, he huffed and walked away.

            “And where have you been? I was starting to think you’d rejected my invitation,” Draco offered with a teasing smirk as he took up Mitch’s spot beside her already feeling the heat of Hermione’s eyes boring into his back.

            “You don’t seem like the kind of guy who takes rejection well.”

            Draco held his hand against his chest in mock surprise. “I poured my soul to you and this is how I am repaid?”

            “Yeah, well you haven’t been completely honest, have you?” Clarke answered back, this time without pretense.

Draco stopped walking and sighed before planting his feet in front of her. He swirled his tumbler of scotch and titled his head to one side, amused, waiting.

“I wanna know what’s going on at that run-down complex downtown,” she said, all business before folding her arms.

Draco glanced at the people just behind her, at the mother and daughter primping each other’s dresses. At the businessmen volleying statistics about as fast as Dow Jones could release them.

“Look, whatever it is-”

“Drugs,” he deadpanned, watching as confusion spread over her face.

“Excuse me?”

“Here’s a little history lesson. In the 80s the US government actively funneled drugs into poor, black neighborhoods. It was ridiculously lucrative and put thousands of people behind bars all the while there was a ‘War on Drugs.’ It was a farce. All of it.”

“And you think that’s happening now?”

Draco sipped from his tumbler, his voice nonchalant. “Don’t think, I know. How do you think Ark Councilmen have been funding all these ‘special projects’ going up all over the city. I mean why reinvent the wheel, right? Different era, same scam.”

“What’s that have to do with you? I mean does Bellamy know?”

“You should ask him. As for me, I want to _build_ downtown and I can’t do that if the patrons are coked up and or incarcerated.”

“Of course it comes back to a contract for you.”

He gestured at Hermione with a nod. “Is that what she told you about me? That it’s always about a contract?”

“I’m paraphrasing.”

Draco sighed and down the rest of his scotch. “I’m building a school. Thinking about investing in businesses that pledge to open locations downtown. And the druglord politicians...I’ll take care of.”

“Mary’s Bakery is thinking of expanding downtown. _That’s_ why they attacked.”

Draco turned back to center of the ballroom and watched as Hermione whispered something in Joshua’s ear.

“You can’t tell her, you know,’ he said quietly before chomping on an ice-cube at the bottom of his glass.

“What? I have to-”

“No. You don’t. The more people who know are the more people in danger.”

“Draco-”

“You took an oath to serve and protect. So I told you. But she doesn’t need to know.”

“Draco, I can’t just-”

“You love her?” he said as he fished another cube from the glass.

“What? Of course. Of course I love her.”

Draco swallowed the last of the ice and handed her the empty tumblr. “Glad we’re agreed.”

With that he walked away, chomping on the end of a toothpick, smiling at giddy socialites like he didn’t just confess to something just shy of murder. He stopped for a moment watched the string quartet tune up their instruments to begin. And then Draco whispered in the ear of the cellist and smiled devilishly as Hermione heard the first notes of the song ring out.

He simply stood there for a moment watching as her eyes found him. Then he rolled back his shoulders and got ready to dance.


	6. I Have Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How can the one girl who knows everything not see what's right in front of her?  
> How can the strongest cop be overcome?  
> There is danger in men's eyes and smiles and the best laid plans of cunning women still often go awry.
> 
> With Love,  
> Leveeohsah

Hermione rolled her shoulders back and smiled indistinctly at whatever her date had said, fighting hard not turn back and glare as Draco prowled the room like a snake courting prey.  _ Josh _ , she thought with another small smile. Those coffee cups signed  _ ‘JA’ _ that overflowed the office kitchen bin was him? The man had a  _ problem.  _ Even now he seemed a bit jittery, but Hermione covered her suspicions with encouraging pats on the arm, a touch to the shoulder, like the ghost of a girlfriend past. He’d been a face in the crowd at the conference table, in meetings of twenty or more she supposed but something particular about him struck her. He was quite handsome up close, the way money washes away grime...on the outside anyway, but there was something else. Ah, he’d been the one to take a call in the middle of her presentation to the Commissioner, so either he’s a dick or that important phone call probably had something to do with tonight. Hermione chuckled for real for once. It’s funny how things sit right under your nose.

“And you? What do you do with the little time you spend outside of that place?”

_ The office? The one you also supposedly *work* at? _

“Oh...I. I do-” Hermione reached for something light and indistinct.

“Draco.” Josh supplied.

“What?” she nearly whispered, but his attention was turned on something just behind her head. And then she heard the opening notes of the Yule Ball Waltz and slowly turned around to face the other problem child of the night.

“Hey,” he smirked at her, his voice too quiet, too personal and gazing half a beat too long.  _ ‘Hey.’ _ Like a true All-American Boy. He turned away from her, “and Joshua.”

“Malfoy,” Josh answered back. “I must say, since the Captain’s Ball was moved to this museum it’s been nothing but...a spectacular affair. Ark City has you to thank for that.”

“The museum is the property of all Ark City’s people, our greatest resource and strength. That’s why I built it,” Draco said with a smile turning to the the giddy socialites who had gathered upon his arrival. “It was less about spectacle and more about giving to this community,” Draco glanced around at the faces gathered, “the way it gives to us. Surely that’s something even someone as far removed as you understands.”

“Oh please, you don’t give, you don’t get,” Josh dismissed him with a wave of his hand, his voice condescending. “Some of these people don’t add a thing to  _ our _ thriving community. Those who will hold us back get what they deserve.” He looked away from Draco to the darting glances that whispered their disapproval behind closed hands.

“Well,” Draco began again, all smiles. “Maybe you’re right.” All eyes swivelled in his direction. “And if so...I pray we never get what  _ we _ deserve.”

Hermione gulped in the silence that followed before a hand reached firmly for her own.

“Dance with me,” Draco said quietly and though it was more a command than request, she spotted Jan in a short, red number making her way over to them and Hermione was in no mood to handle damage control.

The musicians picked up a slow, longing rendition of Camila Cabello’s  _ I Have Questions _ as she let the one person she shouldn’t into her arms.

Draco’s hand snaked around her waist like belonged there and Hermione tried not to bristle at the contact. She straightened her back and sighed as they began a waltz she knew well and waited for his first words.

After a minute Draco looked down at her. “I would like to make amends.”

Hermione could have plotted the entirety of Earth’s orbit with the roll of her eyes. “I have no need for amends,” Hermione said over his shoulder as he led her around the room. “I want answers.”

Draco chuckled under his breath. “Well if the great Hermione doesn’t have them, I don’t expect to be of any help,” he said into her hair.

“Why run for mayor? You haven’t even lived in Ark City that long.”

An amused brow lifted with mirth. “I thought Clarke was the cop.”

“And I thought you had an American real estate empire to run,” she said evenly glancing up at him as he spin her into his chest. “So what are you doing, Draco?”

Another smile. All teeth as he dipped her low. “Dancing.”

They were both quiet for a moment as she got her bearings. He was so close, the smell of him heady, making her light on her feet. Hermione cleared her throat, ignoring how her hand fit so well in his broad one, wondering if those rough calluses had always been there, wondering what he got up to now that they were...apart.

And yet so close.

“You can’t fool me, Draco,” her voice never wavering in its confidence, her feet picking up pace. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you care about it. I know you and this is more than a contract. You left  _ me _ for a contract,” she finished, all facts, no judgment, no emotion. “This...this is different.”

Draco’s smile was tight as he glanced around the room, his low voice only loud enough for her own ears. “You think I left you for a  _ contract _ .”

_ An opportunity then, an empire even. Whatever you want to call it-  _ Hermione thought to herself, but a sliver of doubt creeped into her gut that had butterflies rising in her stomach. They weren’t here to talk about this, but suddenly she couldn’t stop herself from pushing.

Hermione sighed, faux boredom. “What was it then; Wrong girl, wrong time, and wrong country?” She smirked to herself, but her smile fell from her face when she saw the stern quietness in Draco’s own.

“Relax, Draco,” she said placating, though her hand on his shoulder trembled. “I know you dating me was just a..fling thing. And for what it’s worth, it was a good one.”

“I distinctly remember you reminding me that I was just your rebound after that red-haired weasel.”

Hermione scoffed as he led her into a soft spin. “Yeah like you would ever take  _ me  _ home to meet your family. I was just a cover for you to finally rebel against your thorough-bred parents. ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner, everyone! The too proud  _ mudbl- _ ”

Hermione almost choked on the word as she slammed into Draco’s solid chest, but she barely had to time to react as he held her firmly against himself, rooted in the middle of the ballroom, peering down at her with fiery eyes.

“Who said you were just a cover?” he said simply, his voice as firm and even like they were back in his kitchen with Bear circling around their too-close feet.

“Wasn’t I?” she answered back, her voice just as steady though she felt she could hardly breathe. Pressed this close together, all down the front of them.

Draco cocked his head to one side and simply stared, before whipping her around in a half-spin; his hand splaying over her stomach, her back pressed against his chest. Willing her eyes to focus again, Hermione found Josh whispering something to his sister before they both turned away, exiting the ballroom on opposite sides.

Draco pulled her even closer, his hand fingering the button at the center of her blazer.

_ And wasn’t I?  _ He echoed her, whispering to the hot skin behind her ear and for all her worth she couldn’t tell if it was all just in her head. She closed her eyes for a moment, just to get her bearings, needing to see straight and when she opened them she was standing steadily on her own two feet, perfectly alone.

 

***

Clarke kept one eye trained on Jan and the other trained on Hermione and Draco who seemed to be in the middle of the  _ Tango de Roxanne  _ out on the ballroom floor.

_ Politics,  _ Clarke thought with a scoff, but there was an energy rippling off them that she didn’t understand.  _ Maybe that’s why she kept all this bottled up,  _ Clarke muttered under her breath as Joshua whispered something in his sister’s ear. Clarke bit her lip and tried to remain focused. She’d never been in love like that, she thought as she saw Jan move toward the exit. Even if Hermione had wanted or needed to share this with her, what help could she have been? She had run from love she didn’t want to get to Ark City; from an overbearing mother, from a cheating boyfriend, from a best friend who would have strangled her with a single, diamond ring. She didn’t know love with that much passion, she thought, walking faster yet to the exit.  _ What is it like to feel- _

Clarke gasped as someone pulled her through the East exit entryway. She could see Jan a little farther ahead, heels click-clacking under her as she headed farther and farther away. Clarke whipped around and looked into the eyes of one Bellamy Blake.

“Bell-” He put his hand over her mouth and pushed her against one of the large marble columns in this hall.

Clarke huffed and motioned to kick him, but he caught her leg and pulled it to his waist. Her hands grabbed his chest to steady herself. Jan was nowhere to be found.

_ Well fuck. _

Her leg still around his waist Bellamy pulled out his phone.

“Mitch.” he growled.

“Y-yes, sir.” Clarke rolled her eyes as she heard Mitch answer on the other end.

“Were you or were you not supposed to keep an eye on Clarke,” he said into the phone as Clarke’s eyes widened. She tried to pull her leg back but he only yanked her closer to him, his hand quickly finding the pistol tucked into her garter.

“I was, sir, but then-”

“Find her and take her home,” he said clearly, looking her dead in the eye. He tossed the pistol on the ground and her badge not far behind hit. Clarke scoffed.

“Yes, of course. Yes.”

“Yes  _ what.” _

“Yes, sir.” * _ click* _

“Really, Bellamy? I can take care of-”

“I saved your  _ life _ . It wasn’t for nothing.” He leaned into her, dark liquor and wood in his cologne. “Go. Home.”

Clarke ran a hand through Bellamy’s curls and pulled him closer, the whole of him pressed against her. “I’ll fight you for it,” she whispered and then his lips were on hers and there was no time for planning or scheming. Just barely breathing and Bellamy and this.

And fight they did. Clarke felt her hands go everywhere, reaching for every inch of him, her mouth riotous against his as he held her in place. But, Bellamy held her face in his hand, his tongue darting between her lips, always teasing. She found she could barely breathe. When Bellamy lifted her hands above her head she let him, too focused on those other parts of him, on winning this battle they were fighting in silence with their lips. She kept fighting exactly until she heard the click of metal against her wrists as Bellamy pulled away, mischief gleaming in his eye.

Clarke shook her hands against the column. “Cuffs? Really Bellamy?!”

“When have we ever agreed to fight fair?” he said gruffly. Whatever else he had planned, the bulge in his pants belied how he really felt.

Clarke pulled against the column again. “I’m not your Prometheus. You can’t just leave me chained here.”

“Ah, but you do know too much,” Bellamy sighed, staring down the hall to wherever Jan had undoubtedly gone. “Mitch will be here soon.”

“Bellamy.” Clarke growled.

He sighed again and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips. “Go home, won’t you?”

“Yes,” she hissed at him, but he held her face in his hand.

“Yes what.”

“Yes,  _ sir.” _

And with another kiss he was gone, with her gun and her  _ dignity,  _ jogging after Jan like a man with a mission.  _ Her _ mission.

“Clarke?” She heard Mitch’s nervous whisper ring out moments later as she slumped against the column. Clarke only closed her eyes.

_ Well... fuck. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part Two of the Captain's Ball. The Ball may actually round out this fic, though I'm considering lengthening it. In any case it's been fun (usually) to write. I've been writing in Docs because it's easier, that's why the formatting is off, but no biggie I hope! Please leave comments! Your feedback goes directly into this fic. So please, enjoy ;)
> 
> Also, Hermione and Draco's relationship just might be loosely based on one of my fave movie couples which is referenced in this chapter. Leave a comment if you recognize which one!
> 
> -Leveeohsah


	7. Star-Crossed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've been gone too long. Please accept this token as an apology. Some of the Dramione you've been waiting for.
> 
> Is he a Dragon without the heat?

Draco sighed and chewed on the end of his toothpick. “You really think Mitch can hold off Clarke?” he said playfully into the cellphone held at his ear.

“You sound concerned,” Bellamy grunted on the other end. Draco could hear plates slamming against counters in the background. He must be in the kitchen.

“Mitch, the bitch?”

“She’s chained to a column, Drake.”

“Oh. Kinky.” He suddenly found himself thinking of apples.

“Don’t be cute. She’s safe. Make sure you’re safe. You get in there, shake a few hands,” Draco heard a plate crash on the other end and Bellamy yell some Spanish curse he picked up in New York, “make a few deals, and you LEAVE. No bullets tonight, remember?”

Draco scratched his jaw and looked around the room of priceless relics that seemed almost familiar. His eyes caught on a banner that said: Golden Age England. He turned again just in time to see something dart out of his vision, but he couldn’t be sure. The exhibit was technically closed but the moon lighting wasn’t doing him any favors.

“You know me, no promises,” he muttered just as a man swaggered into the dimly lit room, a glass of some dark liquid in his hand.

“Drake-” Draco put his hand over the receiver.   

“Were this way, Malfoy,” Joshua seemed to almost sneer as he stepped into view.

Draco stared back at him and smiled as he spoke into the phone, “Aye, aye Captain.”

 

Joshua turned on his heel and walked out of the room, undoubtedly to where the meeting was going to be held tonight. There’d be a bunch of millionaires sipping from crystal tumblers, probably playing poker and betting on the priceless relics in these very rooms. He could smell the cigar smoke already.

He walked over to a jeweled sword scabbard, it’s emerald crest glinting even in the moonlight. He fingered the encrusted hilt of the sword and slowly pulled it from its sheath watching as the engraved snake gently curled down the blade before ending in a delicate ‘M.’

“My family has always had a knack for violence,” Draco muttered in the dark room. He brushed his thumb against the engraved ‘M.’ “But I must say,” he said evenly watching as something darted far behind him in the reflection of the blade. “We do it with a certain flair.”

He turned and threw the blade through the air so that it landed directly in the center of a hung portrait of the Queen Mother.

_Wait...if Joshua is already back here...where’s-_

“Draco,” Hermione said his name like a curse as she stepped out of the shadows.

“Morgana’s bloody mercy,” he grit out as he stomped toward her.

“You need to know-” Hermione gasped as his hand closed over her mouth. Draco could hear men laughing as if someone had just opened a door.

_Someone’s coming._

 

Draco held his hand over Hermione’s mouth as she struggled against him and pushed her toward the darkened corner. From their spot in the shadows he could see the Commissioner poke his head into the room for a moment before swirling his tumbler and walking on.

Hermione bit his finger and he hissed. “Drac-” He covered her mouth again and pulled her backwards through a small opening in the wall, undetectable unless you knew where to look.

They struggled down a short, tight corridor before he pushed her into a smaller room, empty except for a bench, work-table and an unseen projector showing rotating constellations at an angle on the wall and the high dome ceiling just above them; a new exhibit.

Hermione stumbled away from him to regain her footing.

“What the fuck?!” she screamed, her lungs still heaving from their struggle.

“What the fuck is right! What are you doing here?”

“I. WAS. INVITED.”

“Invited to follow me?!”

“Why is that so surprising? I’m sure it happens plenty of times considering you’re a spy and all.”

Draco rubbed the bridge of his nose, “I’m not a spy.”

“So what was that out there? You nearly killed me!”

“Well I thought you were going to kill me so all’s fair, I suppose,” he spat sarcastically and glanced around the room for cloth, cable-ties, construction materials; anything to tie this woman down.

Hermione took a step towards him and the door and he stepped forward, too. “You have to stay here.”

“I don’t HAVE to do anything,” she spat back but he could see the wheels in her mind turning. He didn’t know how much she knew, but the longer he spent bickering with her the less time he spent bargaining with robber barons. But as smart as she was, maybe he could convince her there was no danger at all.

Draco held out a hand in front of him like he was approaching a wild animal. “Hermione-”

“Don’t. I know it’s drugs. Poorer people move the product, millionaires like you keep the profit. You couldn’t have picked a more textbook political crime.”

_Clever. Fucking. Girl._

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered as he took a step closer to her. When did it become so easy for him to lie to her face?

“Yeah? Why don’t you inform me then?” Hermione answered back, not buying a word of it. She took another step back. “You tell me exactly what’s going on here tonight and I promise to stay out of your way.”

Draco took another slow step forward waiting for her to step back. She didn’t. “You’ll stay out of my way...the whole night?” He said sarcastically. He wasn’t buying that either.

“I’ll even stay in this very room.”

“You’re right. You will. Because I don’t owe you any fucking answers.” He stalked away from her. Praying there was an outside lock on this door or a box he could push in front of it to keep her in. The whole thing sounded so ridiculous in his head, but he thought of the other option and grit his teeth.

Until he felt a sharp mass hit the back of his head.

“What the f-?” He dodged another attack as Hermione’s heels bounced to the ground.

“Oh, you OWE ME an explanation!” she yelled. They were both fuming, but Hermione was livid.

“As soon as I knew you were in New York I packed my bags. I _had_ to get out of there. I left a job at the literal United Nations because I couldn’t stand the thought of running into you in that huge city.” She shook her head and laughed and it sounded almost shrill. “And now you’re here.”

“Hermione-”

“In my city. Breaking my rules. And I won’t let that happen.”

Draco squinted his eyes in disbelief. “You..you think I’m with _them,_ ” he said, his voice incredulous as he stepped slowly toward her. “You think I’m the bad guy.”

“I think you’re going to get yourself killed. And bad guy? It’s really not that far-fetched of an idea I mean you’re carrying stolen goods from crime sites, you’re keeping company with the sleaziest billionaires-

“You mean like you and _JOSH_.” He was nearly in her face, now.

“AND you left me waiting in the cold at a fucking train stop. Alone.”

“That’s not-”

“Sort of like you left me this morning. Alone.”

He thought of her in his T-shirt, her hair tousled and her eyes bright. It must have been cold in the kitchen. He could see her nipples hardening under her shirt-

He tried to shake the memory from his head, but it wouldn’t go. All he could imagine was that shirt...and what was underneath.

 

“It’s like you have this tendency to do exactly the wrong thing,” Hermione pressed on turning away from him as if looking for an answer somewhere in the room. “Oh yeah! Kind of like a bad guy!” she said over her shoulder as she walked away from him.

Draco grunted, frustrated and rushed toward her, but stopped short as he watched her bend at the waist. And then he heard the unmistakable sound of a zipper.

“Wha-?”

“Answer my questions. I stay in this room. You can go fuck up the world or whatever it is you do.”

Draco laughed, throaty and dry. “You’re staying in here any-” the words caught in his throat as she continued to turn away from him. And pulled down her pants.

“What’s the real story with these drugs?” she said evenly as they pooled on the floor around her feet.

Draco worked his jaw and found his feet stepping toward her.

“Why does it all point back to you?” She said calmly, still stepping toward the wall.

He watched as his precious Armani suit jacket took also it’s place on the floor and swallowed hard as he watched her bare back and legs walk away from him, his eyes zoning in on her swaying hips. Her dark red panties.

For a second he closed his eyes and willed his strength to return to him, but she wasn’t drunk or asleep in his bed. This was Hermione. His Hermione.

 

He had to stop her.

 

“Hermione,” he growled her name like a curse and she turned around when she heard it, shoulders back, unabashed and unafraid.

Draco didn’t even pretend not to stare as he felt his pants grow tighter. He didn’t deserve this. Didn’t deserve her. He knew that. He expected to feel disgust or shame for staring so openly at this woman who was so far above him, but he only felt...hunger and need like there was this dull ache in his body that had been ripped open and only she could fill it. And in the dumbest, stupidest part of his heart...he felt something like hope.

“You’ll be the death of me,” he grunted at her, furious that she was making him feel these things he’d fought so hard to bury. She stood her ground and Draco wondered how a half-naked women could look so soft and yet poised for battle.

Hermione waited a moment staring at him, her eyes riotous, daring him to give her an answer. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take.

She huffed and bent down at the waist.

“Don’t.” He heard himself almost whisper. He turned away from her and swore, but there was a riot in his own head to fight.

_Why? Why is she doing this? Why is she even here?_

_What could she have achieved coming here? She thinks I’m the bad guy but...she’s not even trying to stop me. She doesn’t even-_

He stopped and thought of her crouching in the shadows of the exhibit, watching him. She knew too much. She always knew too much. But if she wasn’t trying to stop him…

He thought of the men in the next room, enemies who claimed to be allies, men who killed without getting their hands dirty. Whether they wanted a truce or were setting a trap he didn’t know, but he could handle it. He knew that.

 

But she didn’t.

_She’s trying to keep me in here._

_She’s trying…. She’s trying to protect me._

Draco felt something hot swell in his chest as those red silk panties fell at his feet. He heard her walking away from him and when he looked up she wall nearly at the far wall, crossing in front of the beams of the projector. He watched her shoulders rise and fall as if she’d taken a deep breath.

And then she turned to him, hands fisted at her sides. Stars dancing over her skin.

And he looked at her. Really looked at her. At the bright red of her lips to the scar over her left ankle, all of the details of her mixing with the stars darting over her body, over her heart.

 

Draco fisted his hands at his sides as he fought not to go over to her. Not to touch her, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her body and those stars. That familiar, beautiful body...those familiar, beautiful constellations.

And he swore again and fought himself, because the constellation touching her skin, dancing over her was _Draco_ , and she looked so at home in those stars.

And when she finally asked him in a voice like smelted iron ‘Why did you leave?’ he couldn’t have told you why someone would ever do a stupid thing like that.

He rushed at her, crossing the room in three steps. “Hermione.” He grunted as he picked her up in his arms. He felt her legs close around his torso as he slammed them against the wall. Draco pushed her waist down so it was in line with his own and heard her gasp as her eyes found his again and he groaned. They fumbled with the buttons on his shirt and discarded both shirt and suit jacket in a heap on the floor. He pushed her up higher on his torso so they were eye level as he unzipped his pants. Their eyes never left each other but he felt his hands still as he looked into her eyes.

“Hermione,” he said softly as he raised a hand to her cheek, but she shook him off, her fiery eyes guarded as she whispered to him.

“Say my name one more time and I will slip and I won’t regret it.”

Draco stared in awe of this woman and felt his need grow even larger. He leant into her and she turned slightly away from him. He paused for only a second before kissing the sharp line of her jaw and whispered to the hot skin there. “Hermione.”

He softly kissed the skin under her ear, “Hermione.”

He sucked hard against the column of her throat and felt her back arch toward him. “Hermione.”

And when he kissed the hollow at the base of her neck he did so slowly, deliciously, keeping her still with one hand as he used the other to guide himself into her.

She gasped as he pushed into her and he lifted his head to gently pull on the bottom lip of her open mouth.

And then slowly he stood up straight, looming just over her, he turned her head to look into his eyes as she reached the hilt of him. Her eyes fluttered shut, her hand fisted tightly in his hair, she moaned low and deep and Draco cocked his head to one side as he watched her. Her eyes flashed open as he ran his thumb around her open lips, smudging that perfect red outline as his finger poked into her mouth. She watched him, eyes defiant even as her back arched toward him, even as she wriggled her hips on his dick until he trailed his thumb from her mouth, down her neck, and across her chest, his finger flicking her hard nipple. He squeezed it and she nearly screamed.

 

_Hermione._

 

And then he began to move.


	8. Times Square

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ;)

Hermione kicked the door closed behind her, flopped onto her bed and sighed. After finishing up a huge brief early, she’d posted flyers around the city for an upcoming town hall meeting, compiled a “Here’s Why You’re Wrong” Facebook post about unconstitutionality of racial profiling and attended a protest in the middle of Times Square... bone tired was an understatement. It felt like she’d done everything short of saving this little corner of the world. This little corner of New York, anyway.

And in spite of it all, her awesome job at the UN, feeling like she was making a difference and actually planning to keep her scheduled dinner plans with friends this week, somehow she still couldn’t shake him. She was so, so busy and yet there was room in her head where he lived. Always. That morning she’d sat in front of her oatmeal and smiled, remembering when he “accidentally” switched the salt with the sugar one unforgivably early morning. She’d walk by Tiffany’s on 5th Ave just to see a ring in the window that looked so familiar. She would take the elevator to the fifth floor cafe at work with a bunch of Wall Street cardboard cut-outs and all at once realize none of them smelled quite like you.

Him. Like him.

 

Hermione groaned and rolled over, peeking her eyes out from between her hands. Sometimes her stupid brain would conjure him up, right there beside her. They’d talk or they wouldn’t talk, but today he wasn’t there. He was still in her head though. She could see him there, naked on her rug, his leg propped up, a textbook open on his lap. He was looking at her in a way that she didn’t want to remember. Like she mattered to him.

Like he loved her, too.

In her head he licked his finger before he turning a textbook page. Fingers they’d used to bake an apple tart just hours before. Fingers that knew just where to-

Hermione gasped as her eyes flew open. He wasn’t a memory anymore.

Because she did see him. For real. In the middle of a protest in Times Square. Surrounded by strangers. Looking at her like _that_. And so she ran, all the way to her New York apartment with all the furnishings. Silly girl. He was always exactly where he wasn’t supposed to be. Always.

And somehow never here.

 

***

 

“Hermione,” Draco breathed, hot against her skin. His voice almost angry, but Hermione was busy being careful, trying not to break, careful not to fall. She’d had so long to perfect this dance. She couldn’t let him win.

Hermione felt herself tense against him as he hit a spot she _knew_ he remembered. Draco pulled back to look at her, but she only held him closer. She moaned into his ear, “ _harder”_ and pushed her hips toward him but she wasn’t strong enough. He pinned her arms above her head and peered down at her, waiting.

 

“Draco,” she snapped.

He tightened his grip around her hands as he peered down at her. His eyes were so serious, searching her out.

“Did you really think I was just a rebound after that red weasel.”

“What? Now?!”

“Answer me,” he muttered, his thumb circling her nipple.

Hermione scoffed if only to cover her growing blush. “You know what? Fuck you. You didn’t answer any of _my_ questions so- _ahh_ ”

Draco pulled her nipple roughly between his fingertips before slapping her hard on the ass.

“Fuuuck. Me.”

“I’m trying to,” Draco chuckled as he rubbed her nipple under his thumb. “So just answer me. I already know you’re lying.”

“Oh?!” Hermione yelled, trying to cover her ecstasy with anger. “How’s that? Does it really take one to know _Mmm...fuck.”_ Her voice broke as his hand travelled down to where they were joined, his fingers rubbing at the core of her.

“Or maybe I know because you’re sopping wet,” he said casually as his fingers circled faster. “On my dick.”

Hermione couldn’t help it. She was so close to the edge of falling. She met him thrust for thrust. Harder and faster, her breasts hitting his chest, his hand still pinning her to the wall. And then his fingers pushed unforgivably against her center and she broke all her rules.

“ _Hermione,”_ he cursed as her lips crashed into his, her tongue lapping up the taste of liquor and salt. She swallowed his gasp and unhinged, drunk on his scent, devouring his lips. His tongue broke all her defenses and invaded her mouth and when she finally came up for air she heard his whispered command, “ _Come.”_

 

Hermione bit hard against the seam of her lips, moments from her breaking point as she looked into his eyes and answered, “ _Come along.”_ She watched his sharp intake of breath as she tightened around his dick.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he grit out as he thrust into her faster and faster, harder each time. He watched her eyes blink close as she cried out, her body shuddering as her walls tightened around him. Watching her unleashed him. The world splintered around them as he came and came.

 

They stood there, panting, holding each other like two boxers, weakened in the ring. Then Draco swung her legs over his arm and carried her to that slab bench and slowly lowered her onto it. He stared into her eyes and slowly, wordlessly, he pushed his leaking cum back inside of her open legs, kissing her stomach, her breasts, her neck and forehead, saying ‘I love you’ without words and meaning it. And then he laid down next to her as she watched him trace stars along her skin.

“He...held you like a flower," Draco muttered, like a bedtime story. "So afraid of breaking. As if he didn’t watch you hold the whole world on your shoulders as it ached to fall apart. That weasel never knew what to do with you and I… I never should have... hurt you in the name of protecting you. I never should’ve lied to you. I should’ve been honest...because that’s been your favorite thing.”

Hermione lay on her back so he couldn’t see the tears forming in her eye.

“The little Gryffindor lion, full-grown.” Draco said with a weak smile in his voice as he settled down next to her and they watched the circling stars. “And I loved you something fierce." He whispered harshly like it hurt him to say. As if  _he_ was the one hurting and not the one to blame.

 

“What do you want from me?” Hermione muttered in the quiet room. She saw Draco's chest rise high and fall deeply beside her before he spoke.

“I want you to tell me to go. Whatever’s waiting for me out there, I earned it. I deserve it.”

She was quiet for a moment before she answered him.

“No.”

Draco shook his head. “Tell me-”

“For ONCE. For fucking once just stay. Please.... Please, just stay.”

He breathed deeply as she turned away from him and he leant over her shoulder to kiss her cheek.

“ _Hermione,”_ he mumbled into her neck, finally, quietly. And that was the last thing he remembered before the world went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Debating writing the Oxford prologue or the What Comes Next fic next. If anyone reads this let me know lol


	9. Something Old

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I haven't felt motivated to write this because I'm not sure people want to read it, and I don't want to waste anybody's time putting content into the world that doesn't deserve to be there. That being said, I find myself returning to this story again and again.  
> Even after all this time.  
> Always.
> 
> We're nearing the end and I hope at the very least it gives you some comfort and maybe some hope.
> 
> Xx -Leveeohsah

Clarke dragged Mitch behind her as she kept to the shadowy walls of the museum, shushing his protests and looking for weak-points, entrances or exits they could’ve missed. Oh and feeling her heart beat in her throat every time she thought she heard Bellamy around the next corner.

When Mitch’s phone rang, they both jumped out of their skin.

“Mitch give Clarke the phone,” Clarke heard someone’s muffled yell on the other end. Clarke ignored Mitch’s protests and swiped the phone from his ear.

“Hey, O.”

“Well, what’s your status?”

“Grounded.”

“Ugh. Well you know Big Bro, ‘always watching, but I think he’s got a special eye for you.”

“Would be cute if the reference connecting him and a hypothetical, totalitarian British regime wasn’t spot on. Hermione’s got her eye on Draco, but in all of this we lost both brother and sister in the chaos.”

“Josh and Jan? Fuck, I needed to pull on that thread.”

“Me, too.”

“At least Draco is safe...right?”

Clarke sighed. “We need more than at least. Draco is safe-for now, but if whatever’s planned for tonight actually goes through I think a lot of people won’t be.”

"What's planned for tonight?" Mitch asked with wariness Clarke happily ignored.

“Clarke-”

“How fast can you get here?”

“I wasn’t invited?”

“I’m a cop. We all get one occasion to abuse our power, isn’t it in the rulebook?” She turned to Mitch who was chomping on his nails. “It’s in the rulebook.”

“Let me rephrase. Bellamy had Lincoln serve me a 5-pound restraining order tweaked for one night only. Wherever he is I can’t be there and it’s IRONCLAD, Clarke. I know because I technically wrote it!”

“Look stay by the phone, alright? I have a plan.”

Mitch blinked at her like he was about to hurl up his dinner.

“Oh,” Clarke said sweetly. “And I have to make another call.”

 

***

 

 

 

Hermione stared down at Draco’s unconscious body and then up at Louboutin in her hand in shock before tossing the thing away from her. Stars were still dancing on the walls, the small room quiet just the same except now Draco was… well, involuntarily asleep. She leant closer to him studying, poked him, before drawing her finger back in amazement.

_Holy sh-_

She jumped hearing a phone, _her_ phone go off across the room. She stumbled over to it, rushing even though her wobbling legs wouldn’t cooperate.

 _Shit! Shit! Shit!_ She screamed at the impossibly loud phone in her head, but Draco’s only response was the light rise and fall of his naked chest.

“Uh, hey..” Hermione muttered uncertainly after finally reaching the screaming device in her pants pocket.

“Hey?? Where the fuck are you?” Clarke whisper-shouted. Hermione could hear someone cursing a few feet away from her, their voice filled with worry.

“Slight snag,” Hermione muttered as she pulled on the trousers and her ‘borrowed’ Armani suit jacket.

“Look, I’m heading back there...Josh, Ellis, they’re all in some backroom gambling away the city’s future. Literally.”

“Clarke, wait. I don’t think-”

“Mitch has his badge and I have his gun...what’s the worst thing that could happen? Draco’s safe, now we have to deal with the devils.”

Hermione heard Clarke huff on the other end of the line, but it barely registered. She nearly tripped as she stealthily crept to her Louboutins, her legs still feeling like jelly after…what they...what he-

“Hermione, we can’t just-”

“Wait a moment, alright?” Hermione pulled up a text from Octavia on her phone. “If Octavia is right, Bellamy will be covering every entrance. He’ll see you if you aren’t careful.”

“He’s just one man.”

“Yeah well,” Hermione glanced once more over her shoulder at Draco before slipping through that small opening in the room’s wall. “He’s your problem now.”

“You can say that again. Seriously though where are you-”

“Im going to find Jan. If there’s anyone who can derail this whole night now it’s her.”

Clarke hummed after a moment. “You’re right. Be safe…”

“...”

“Don’t get caught.” They said at the same time.

Hermione glanced at the angry, red number of unread e-mails on her homescreen and pocketed her iphone without opening a single one. For once work would have to wait. With a sigh she rolled back her shoulders, closed her eyes and counted…

_1...2...3._

And when she opened her eyes Draco was still sprawled on that white slab bench like a Greek god, his naked form behind her, her hand already reaching for that hidden door. Back in the elizabethan exhibit she breathed a guilty sigh of relief.

_It’s not like you killed him. I mean he would’ve gotten HIMSELF killed. Right? Right. You’re right._

And maybe it was the crazy woman in her head rationalizing bludgering the love of her life, but for some reason she strode over to that glinting hilted sword, tugged it from the exhibit and swung it over her shoulder. She smirked and scoffed at the ludicrousness of this night as she pushed on to the kitchen. If anyone knew where Jan was it would be one of the waiters. They could’ve spotted her while making their rounds tonight. Keeping close to the hallway walls she nodded at a few harried waiters passing nearby, their heavy trays laden with desserts. The night was nearly over. Hermione pulled the museum blueprints from memory and hurriedly pushed into the kitchen.

Plates dropped, men yelled, women directed, others stirred pots, poured hot fudge, blowtorched pastries, and not a single person stopped to breathe.

Hermione reached for the person nearest her, “Have you seen-?”

But they waved her off. Another woman tossed a rag that nearly hit her in the face.

Hermione blinked and scratched her chin. Someone dropped a chocolate-covered spoon on the metal counter next to her and it clattered near her hand. Hermione huffed and grabbed the spoon, strode to the back counter and banged it like a gong against the hanging pots and pans.

“Oi! Una dama en vestido rojo!” she yelled over a quickly quieting room. “DONDE. ESTA?”

“Esta aqui-” a woman intoned sweetly in her ear. That was all she heard before a frying pan slammed into her back.

Hermione buckled against the counter in front of her, but jumped back just as the pan almost slammed into her head. She looked into the crazed eyes of Jan Ellis.

“Bitch!”

“Puta!”

Hermione grabbed a strainer behind her and threw it at Jan who swatted it away with her pan. Jan swung high and Hermione ducked and grabbed a metal kettle near the ground and swung it under Jan’s chin. Hermione stumbled back, Jan spit blood and both woman glared at each other ready to kill.

“AAGH!” Jan screamed and tackled Hermione into the counter five feet behind her and grabbed at her hair. Hermione grabbed a soup ladle and held it at Jan’s throat as she snapped and snarled like a rabid dog. All around them the room tilted and spun and the chefs kept on torching their creme brulee. Jan kicked her in the shin and she swore. The kitchen doors swung open, letting in a huge gust of air that lifted Jan’s hair in front of her eyes. Hermione took the opportunity to crack the nearest beer bottle over her head and barely covered her glee as she stumbled out of step, but she only screamed and Hermione barely jumped out of the way before she charged at her like a raging bull.

Jan turned on her heel, breathing heavy and looking murderous and Hermione gulped and reached for the sword on her back.

Just then someone whistled behind her and a door next to Hermione popped open with a gust of cold air. Hermione blew hair out of her face and gripped her sword in front of her. There was no time to think. Jan hurtled toward her and without thinking she whacked her on the left into the open freezer on her right and watched as one of the waiters slammed it shut behind her.

“Mary?” Hermione said with bewilderment as she leaned on her pilfered sword like a walking stick.

Mary blinked a few times before she answered as if she, too, didn’t realize what she just did. “You save my bakery, I save your life. We’re even.”

Hermione let out a tired, breathy laugh. It was all that she could manage, but she stopped when she realized no one else was laughing. No one else was moving.

 

She turned slowly around and realized why.

 

His shoes clicked against the tiled floors of that imperial kitchen with menacing clarity, which was a shame because it really was such a nice kitchen and she would hate to see it covered with her own blood.

Hermione cleared her throat when he stopped five feet from her, his arms tightly folded as he leaned against the counter. His brows were impossibly knit in calm bewilderment, but Hermione knew better. His set jaw betrayed a quiet anger she had come to know well.

Hermione felt her hands tighten around the hilt of that old sword, hoping it would bring her some ancient strength. She pulled an invisible thread on her suit jacket, before pointing to her cheek. “Does, uh...does it hurt?”

Draco tilted his head to one side and appraised his prey, the red cut just above his cheek catching under the bright kitchen lights. “Mary.” He said with impossible calmness. “See that the patrons get their desserts.”

Like a tide, workers rushed out of the kitchen carrying plates and bowls, hurrying to get out of the line of fire.

Hermione squared her shoulders. “I can explain.”

Draco grinned and undid his cufflinks, teeth gleaming as he rolled up his sleeves.

“Jan…” Hermione struggled looking for words. “I think she’s had six too many mojitos. I mean she’s so...small. You think she’d uh, know her limits… y’know?”

“That’s funny,” Draco said in a voice that wasn’t funny at all. “Here I was hoping to finally get some truth from you.” He ran his hand through his now-tousled, blonde hair. “Is that not your favorite thing?”

Hermione gulped. “Draco-”

His name broke the spell and he crossed the space between them with a grunt.

“Wait!” She stopped him at the last minute, sword out and poised just under his neck. She watched his eyes go from surprise to absolutely murderous and something about it was making her absolutely heady. “I think Jan is in a plot to murder you,” Hermione said finally, letting out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. She knew how impossible it sounded, but that wasn’t the reason he was looking at her with such surprise.

Draco glanced down at the emerald-hilt sword in disbelief. “Did we get married while I was unconscious?” he deadpanned.

“What?” In her confusion she watched him reach up and yank her and the sword toward him in one move.

Hermione gasped as she slammed against his chest. With his arm around her waist, he said with quiet heat, “Not a Malfoy, no sword.”

Hermione scoffed and tried to pretend that being this close to him wasn’t affecting her.

Draco’s eyes went dark. “And if you _ever_ put yourself in that kind of danger, again, I’ll destroy you myself.”

“Now who’s not telling the truth?” Hermione breathed staring up at his storming eyes, suddenly deathly afraid of what would come next.

Draco narrowed his eyes. “You.”

“I told you the-”

“ _It’s just sex,”_ Draco mimed, his angry eyes searching hers for denial. Well. Those three words were easier than the truth.

It was like he’d heard her, his eyes narrowing almost to slits. His voice spit venom,

“ _Coward._ ”

Hermione gasped, ready to retort when she felt his hand come down against her ass. _Hard_.

She yelped and grabbed against his shirt, feeling riotous and needing him that close to her still. “ _Stay. Out of. Trouble.”_ Draco muttered, and each phrase seemed to carry it’s own promise of punishment. Hermione shivered in his grasp.

 

He searched her eyes for a moment, desperate to find something, but that earnestness was gone as soon as it came. The kitchen grew colder as Draco turned on his heel and walked to the exit.

Hermione finally found her voice and yelled, “At least leave the bloody sword.”

Without missing a beat, Draco pulled something from his pocket and slammed it on the metal counter nearest those swinging doors before striding right through them.

 

After a moment Hermione stomped over indignantly, but all of her anger went up in smoke as she tentatively reached for that small, impossibly heavy burden of a trinket.

 

All at once her rage flooded back in full force, because of course that’s how he would leave her;

 

With a freezer-burned Jan Ellis,

 

And a 200-year-old Malfoy ring.


	10. Limelight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this for the people in the comments section. You keep me constellation high. 
> 
> More to come.

_ Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. _

 

Draco marched out of the kitchen like a beast on a rampage. He knew how he must have looked, because he saw himself reflected in the reflected serving trays two waiters were clutching as they cowered in the corner.

He rubbed a hand over his eyes and sighed. After a moment he half-grimaced, half-smiled at their fearful faces, he straightened his cufflinks and glanced at his watch. Time was running out.

 

His phone rang.

“What?” Draco said with forced calm.

A chuckle on the other end. “She found you didn’t she.”

Draco scoffed, “ Clarke found you first Blake, don’t sound so surprised.”

Bellamy stifled a chuckle on the other end. “Not surprised, just disappointed in the international super-spy.”

“Not surprised? Hm, well, let’s go for surprising,” Draco muttered as he walked briskly down the hallway, smiling at unsuspecting golf buddies in their penguin-suit best and their coiffed mothers, “I just locked Jan in a fridge and proposed to the love of my life, which of course had to do after I awoke from having been knocked unconscious by said love of said life…” Draco muttered with calm indifference as he pulled a pistol out of it’s hiding place in one of the hallway plants without breaking his stride. “We also fucked-”

“Alright, alright. Busy night for you.”

“Jealous?” Draco laughed with grim mirth as he slid a painting on its hinges and pulled a hidden silencer from the wall.

“Not tonight.”

Draco smiled tightly, before turning a corner down an empty hallway. “I’m guessing you didn’t miss the sound of my voice, Blake”

Bellamy sighed, “They have two gunmen, pistols, mostly for show.

“We’ve got two gunmen, mostly for show.”

“We’re not going in there with guns. We’re going in there for 15 minutes, you kiss the ring of the ‘fazza’ and then you win the election, build your school, make the world a better place.”

“I’ll pay my respects.”

“Just don’t kill anybody.”

“Well, now you’ve jinxed it.”

“Shit, I-” There was a sound of grunting on the other line.  

“DRACO-”

“Draco-”

 

“ _ Merlin’s ass- _ ” Draco spun on his heel and found himself pointing his gun down the barrel of Clarke’s own. He tilted his head to one side and gave a bark of a laugh, because it was just that kind of night.

“Bad night?” _Ah, she reads minds, too._ _“_ Well mine’s worse.” Clarke held up her arm that was still handcuffed to Mitch.

Draco sighed into his phone. “I’ve gotta go...” he said evenly, tapping on Clarke’s cuffs with his gun. “Find a babysitter.”

“Is that Bellamy?” Clarke demanded, reaching for the phone and pulling Mitch’s arm in tow. “Tell him handcuffing two cadets together is a gross abuse of his police power!”

Just then Octavia rounded the corner, with a lockpick and a crowbar in each hand. “Right, well, one of these should do-  heyyyy?”

Draco stared at them all for a moment, each glare more scathing than the last if Mitch’s whimpering was any indication. He dropped his cell-phone in Clarke’s hands and heard the boots behind him even over the blood boiling in his ears. There was no time.

 

_ Let them come. _ As he turned and strode again through the Elizabethan exhibit he could hear his motley crew entourage following close behind him.

Crossing the threshold of the exhibit two men stepped out of the shadows. After a bit of a fight (on Clarke’s part, obviously) they were all pushed roughly through another door.

Draco sighed and wrinkled his nose at the sweat-and-cigar-smoke smell of the room. In a voice like tissue paper between his fingers, a voice spoke from the center:

“How good of you all to join, it was getting so late.”

Draco looked up with a smirk that froze on his face, and in the smoke-lights of that back-room his boiling blood went cold. Because even though she wasn’t covered in stars she was glinting like a gem at the center of the room.

_ *** _

_ Earlier _

Bellamy rubbed his hands together and swore under his breath.  _ The hell is taking so long? _

Just then, he heard the tires on a Lincoln towncar screech as it pulled nearly onto the curb in front of the museum.

Bellamy swore again as the ashen-faced driver ran over to him. “Why do I get the feeling you wasted my time to set up this ‘Lincoln drives a Lincoln’ joke.”

But the grounder was in no mood to joke. He took the museum stairs two at a time, not caring about the patrons who openly stared at his dark jeans and henley combo.

“Bellamy, I can’t find her. I can’t find Octavia.”

“What?” he growled.

“Her tracker’s been dark for over an hour. I looked everywhere else, she has to be here.”

Bellamy ran a hand through his hair. He glanced over Lincoln’s shoulder at the black mass staring expectantly up at him from the backseat.

“Alright new plan.”

***

_ Now _

Bellamy huffed and rounded his shoulders like a caged dog. The blood on his lip had gone dry and he could see his baby-sitters were starting to tire of cracking their menacing knuckles and leering. With his hands cuffed behind his back they eyed him like a punching bag waiting to be pummelled. Bellamy rolled his eyes annoyed that they’d even been able to get the drop on him. They couldn’t be worse than Clarke.

_ Clarke. _

The fucking rookie was gonna get herself killed and she wouldn’t even see it coming.

_ And whose fault was that? _

Bellamy shook his head and tested the strength of his cuffs. The body-guards laughed.

“You don’t need to give them a reason to kill us,” Hermione whisper-shouted over his shoulder. He could feel her shaking a little, but her voice was strong.

“Believe me, Red. They’ve got plenty reason.”

“Now, now,” Bellamy heard a voice from the center of the room. “No need to quarrel. Our guests will be here soon.” Hermione flinched next to him. “I knew the city was filled with scum,” she muttered, her low voice menacing. “I didn’t know I worked with so many of them.”

The greased-up Daddy’s Boy, Josh she called him, strode right for her wearing that same leering smile.

“Ha. You think you’re so smart.” Josh leaned in close to her face. “But we’re everywhere, babe. We’re everything-”

Hermione laughed before he even finished. “Everything? Let me tell you about yourself, Josh. You spent the last year and a half getting high off the coke supply your plugging the city with judging by those unsightly wrinkles and sallow skin, but then Daddy found out didn’t he? Got you a real job at city council where all you do is space out during presentations and drink pathetic, venti lattes trying to recapture that high.” She tilted her head, her eyes shooting daggers at the Commissioner. “Your father must be so proud.”

“You little-”

“Oh Hermione,” the Commissioner almost sang. “You would’ve made such a valuable addition to the team.”

“You must be talking about the office softball team, and for the 8th time… I decline.”

Bellamy snickered next to her, but jolted when Josh yanked her forward until she stood at the Commissioner’s side.

“Still” the Commissioner continued as if no time had passed. “It’s best to show him a united front, yes?”

Hermione squared her shoulders, “I would  _ never-” _

“ _ Jesus-”  _ Bellamy swore just as two blondes a brunette and...fucking Mitch stumbled through the door. Draco cocked an eyebrow as he took in the scene and Bellamy groaned under his breath. He could see what no one else in the room were able to. The grey iron in his eyes was hardening and Bellamy recognized them immediately. They were the same eyes that laid his father’s casket under emerald green Malfoy land. The same eyes that had washed over Bellamy when he’d broken down, after Roma. He looked at Hermione like all his sins were staring back at him.

“How good of you to join us. It was getting so late.”

 

Bellamy tried to find Clarke’s eyes. Tried to tell her that he was sorry, but she didn’t see.

Draco tilted his head to one side and glanced at the girl in the middle of the room.

 

“Hey.”

  
  


***

 

_ And then, it all happened at once. _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Call me Barry Allen because were throwing the whole concept of time out the window.
> 
> All the stories that erupt from this beginning will be a part of the Time Turner Series.
> 
> There will be 2 more about Dramione, 1 in which Clarke will feature which of course will be the Oxford Prequel
> 
> There will be at least 1 about Octavia
> 
> We're getting magical, betch.


	11. Blast From the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If anything in this doesn't make sense it's a reference to another story which I've decided to call:
> 
> Octavia the Great, about O's school years
> 
> and
> 
> When, which is the Oxford Prequel
> 
> I am soooo excited to write those stories and I hope you're excited to read them. The next two chapters will be excerpts from each of those stories to gauge whether I should continue them or not. And then finally we'll have the last chapter of Right Now. I'm so glad you guys were here with me on this journey. As long as you're reading, I'll never stop ;)
> 
> *Not proof-read because I'm a slob who puts things into the world with reckless permanence
> 
> Hold on to ya butts.  
> Xx - Leveeohsah

 

Octavia glanced around the near-silent room, half-lit besides a lone sconce and the cigarette butts between greasy fingers. The light seemed to bounce off every reflective surface, casting the room in a strangely ethereal glow. Her mind drifted to another time.

 

_“I’d love to talk to you about your cases,”_ Hermione had said to her at the fair. _To her. The Hermione Granger who had saved the world like thrice wanted to talk TO HER._

 

It was weird, of course. Not being able to share every part of her life with Bell. She couldn’t. It was for his own good. But at least she had Draco. Draco who would FaceTime her at 4 AM English time while she was studying for Potions at Ilvermorny. _“You have to believe it,”_ He would say between yawns and after a while she did believe it, got O’s on her OWLS that made them all proud, even if Bellamy didn’t really understand what they meant.

_“O for Outstanding?” He’d ask hesitantly._

_“O for Octavia!” Draco would supply with that killer smile._

Octavia didn’t know how Hermione could tell she was a witch just from looking at her, but she hope that was a good sign. But when they’d actually talked at dinner, it was about the one case Octavia prayed she wouldn’t.

 

_“I was working in the City right around the time you made your switch to-”_

_“To people cases?” Octavia had smiled as she sipped her wine and watched the boys making incredible messes in the kitchen. “I know. Quite the 180 flip. But-”_

_“You felt like you had to.”_

_Octavia nodded._

_“Octavia they used to call you the New Age Scamander. That despite your scary briefcase and pointy shoes, you had this way with animals nobody could understand. That’s extraordinary.”_

_Octavia could feel herself blushing and opted for another sip of wine. But this was the good part and she knew it was about to get ugly fast._

_“I remember the New York Ghost actually dubbed you the ‘Eye of Newt’”_

_“Yeah, that was before...”_

_“The zoo trial,” Hermione finished. “Will you tell me about it?”_

_Octavia sighed as she glanced back at her big bro. “They wanted to build a zoo,” she began._

_Hermione nodded without pressing, but waited for her to continue._

 

_“This incredible monstrosity in the heart of New York. Magical creatures only, of course, so I couldn’t even rant to Bell about it... They were using our textbooks, Newt Scamander’s very words as a blueprint, this kind of manifesto I’m sure he never intended.” She turned on her heel. “You’ve gotta understand, it was more than toads and pixies. It was thestrals and purse dragons...but then it got worse.”_

_She lowered her voice, remembering. “Hermione they were going to cage centaurs, merpeople...animagus even. These were people! It was...it was everything we fought against. Everything we never believed.”_

_“And you?”_

_“I was tasked with writing the DEFENSE. As if getting the ‘Eye of Newt’’s seal of approval would make it okay. As if I would ever give it!... And so, I ran. People had already begun to storm out of the courtroom.”_

_“Octavia, you didn’t run.”_

_“In the middle of the case where I of course spoke against the project I, well I-”_

_“It’s alright.” Hermione paused as she looked down into her wine. Just as quickly, she was back. “Do you remember what the zoo was called?”_

_“That’s the thing. They were going to name it Scamander’s too,” Octavia supplied but Hermione just shook her head._

_“Can you tell me who was funding it?”_

_“It was meant to be a city project.”_

_Hermione ran her hand over her forehead. “Octavia. I know this isn’t something you like to talk about, but if you ever stumble on any names connected to that case. Who stormed out of the courtroom? Who owned the land?”_

_Octavia shook her head. “Anyway,” Hermione pressed on, “it’s no pressure. And I’m sorry for grilling you it’s just...it feels like for the past 3 years I’ve been looking at every moment with the wrong eyes._

 

_Hermione glanced up at Draco as he carried a heavy bowl of pasta to the table. He winked at her._

 

_Octavia sighed. “I know what you mean.”_

 

_***_

_There was this little lookout on the edge of town, not far off from Draco’s home, where the stars and the city lights met. Octavia had found it while taking Bear on a walk one night. She thought he’d appreciate the stars. She made sure to show him Ursa, major and minor. The stars had been so lovely, even with Bear’s howling, maybe especially because of it, that she decided to bring him back. And that Lincoln could tag along, too._

 

_Octavia leaned back on the hood of Lincoln’s car between his strong arms, listening and laughing as Bear sang to the stars._

 

_“I never thought I could get to this place. Or any place like this.” The air carried her words out over the city as she laid her head on Lincoln’s arm._

_“Me either…” Lincoln said with a voice that rumbled in his chest. “I don’t have any rich friends.”_

_Octavia snorted and swat his arm. “You know what I mean.”_

 

_“Yeah. I do.”_

_Octavia turned around to capture his mouth in hers._

_He spun her toward him, cradled her face in his hands. “It’s a good thing your Malfoy friend owns half the city,” Lincoln muttered between kisses. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d be jealous.”_

_Octavia laughed again, “He doesn’t own the city. A couple other white men do.”`_

_“Still...I wish I could give you that kind of comfort.”_

_Octavia paused as she held Lincoln’s face in her hands. “I’m comfortable right here.”_

_Then it was Lincoln’s turn to roll his eyes. “I just want to be able to keep you safe....O?” Lincoln asked as she sat back on her legs, but her mind drifting again._

_Draco’s titles and lands didn’t make him safe. They were weighing him down, keeping him from the one place he wanted to be._

 

_So he started dropping dead, rotting weight._

 

_Of course! The zoo was a Malfoy contract. Draco was only meant to follow through with the pre-arranged deal...but he didn’t. And when the sale ultimately fell through…_

_“O…” Lincoln growled into her ear, but she held him at bay._

_There had been a flash of light as she’d …‘run away...’ but she could see the courtroom clear as day in her head. Someone had already been leaving._

He stared back at her now across the half-lit room and she shivered. Josh smiled.

 

“I missed you, O.”

 

***

Clarke glanced around the room at strangers and friends trying to figure what the hell was going on.

 

“I think you know why we’re here,” the Commissioner began.

_Um no the hell I don’t,_ Clarke wanted to yell.

 

“Hm,” Draco kept his eyes trained on Hermione. “I am confused about you handcuffing my wife-”

“ _Fiance_ -” Hermione interjected, indignant.

“ _Politics._ ” Draco shot back at her with a small smile.

 

Clarke blinked twice as the room fell silent.

_This. This is the Twilight Zone._

She glanced over at Mitch who seemed to be just as confused which was hardly a good sign.

 

_Okay, Clarke. You were trained for situations like this. Look for the clues._

 

Her eyes flicked to Hermione who was almost shaking, with rage or fear was anybody’s guess.

“All this for your little election. To keep a few Ark City properties in your power,” Draco scoffed and smiled lightly. “I only wanted the one.”

“There were deals made in good faith before your time, Draco. Things you wouldn’t understand,” the Commissioner spoke sharply as he swirled the dark liquid in his tumblr.

Draco grinned at the nearest gunman, all teeth. “Oh?”

Clarke looked over at Octavia whose fingers were balled in fists as she glared at Josh.

_Octavia and Josh? Josh and Draco? Draco and the Commissioner?_ Clarke shook her head. How did they manage to drag New York all the way to Ark City.

 

The Commissioner spat. “Your father should’ve taught you better.”

Clarke registered a movement in her periphery immediately. Bellamy railed against his chains. The other gunman hit him with the butt of his weapon, but Bellamy kept his eyes trained on Clarke. He tilted his head to one side and then he paused and tilted it again. _Go left, on my mark._

 

Clarke gave a small nod.

“You made a grave mistake, Draco. Getting your friend here involved,” the Commissioner jut his chin out at Bellamy who seemed to be trying hard not to rip anyone apart.

“You people are always so clean on a scene,” the Commissioner continued almost to himself. “You leave no traces behind…” He finally stood up to his full height, like a tall spectre in the darkened room. “But you always forget the women.”

Clarke raised her eyebrows and glanced room Octavia’s confused face to Hermione’s until two figures stood up from their seats, half-hidden in the dark.

 

“Fuck.”

 

“Shit.”

 

“Are you fucking kidding me.”

 

Jan stepped forward and sat on the plush arm of the Commissioner’s chair. And after a moment’s hesitation some bitch sat on the other.

Which bitch?

_Guess, bitch._

Clarke glared at Bellamy, but he only hung his head. Mitch blinked as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. Then he laughed.

“ _ALICE?!_ ”

***

 

_Everybody just SLOW. DOWN._

 

The room seemed to swirl around her as Octavia and Clarke swore on all that was good.

 

_Draco?_

 

He was staring at her, hard. His grey eyes hid so many things she could see just under the surface. It was his turn to be careful.

 

“I know who you are, Commissioner,” Draco began, his eyes still trained on Hermione. “And I know who you most certainly are not.”

Hermione swore she saw something flit past the window at the corner of her vision, but she dare not turn away from Draco’s face.

 

“Tell your boss I’ll be seeing him soon.”

One of the gunmen grunted menacingly next to him, and still his eyes never left hers.

“You should’ve left your animals in the zoo.”

The Commissioner stepped forward. “You wretched-”

“Call off your dogs, Applegate,” Draco cut him off. “Or I call in mine.”

 

Commissioner Applegate glanced around the room, dumbfounded. “I don't know why I don't kill you myself!"

 

And despite all the noise, Hermione looked on at him, anchored so long as he was looking back.

 

_Do you trust me?_  his eyes asked, and as angry as she was, she had never been more sure of anything. In spite of everything that was and everything they were...she trusted him, still.

 

Hermione nodded and watched as  Draco kissed the back of his left hand with a smile and blew it in her direction.

“Ugh,” Jan groaned. “Just get on with it!” She pulled a revolver from behind the plush armchair.

 And all at once.

Draco whistled.

 

Bellamy yelled, "Now!"

 

Clarke dove left.

 

Octavia ducked.

 

And Hermione turned her ring two times to the left and for a moment there were only two people who mattered at all.


	12. Octavia, the Great

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the first excerpt as promised, of Octavia, the Great toward the end of her school-years at Ilvermorny. It comes from near the beginning of the story so I'm sorry if the onslaught of names confuses you. As usual, this lacks the proof-reading even a small child is capable of. But, despite exams and jobs and life it's now a thing that exists.  
> I'm thankful for that.
> 
> Happy Thanksgiving and love to you all.
> 
> Xx -Leveeohsah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should probably mention:  
> COMPLETE CANON DIVERGENCE
> 
> My Ilvermorny doesn't have the same classes as Hogwarts, the students don't wear the same robes, hell they don't even play Quidditch. Instead, they make the very most of their secluded mountain location to develop their magic... less potions, more Hagrid if you know what I mean.  
> The origins are the same, the Irish and American blend and the Ilvermorny houses are conserved, but the way the school operates is uniquely my own. Octavia and her beloved Reelers are one example of that.
> 
> As an American studying in Ireland I feel this is a story I'm uniquely able to tell, but if you are an AMERICAN NATIVE reader, hit my DMs. Your voice matters.
> 
> Let's wreck some lives, shall we?  
> Xx -L

An incredible old magic shivered, stretched and slithered over the Atlantic, carrying curses and kismet as it went. Docking on plymouth rocks it searched for a place in the New World air that refreshed travelling wizards with the smells of pine and fish and dust. But that’s all they had been. Travellers. For years they flew miles, traveled sea and sky to reach the gold-paved streets of a place that had Merry in it’s name. But it didn’t matter how far they flew, how long they’d been at sea. The mystery of this place eluded them. And when wands failed they looked up and prayed not seeing what had always been true. The charms weren’t in the sky though they floated through the air. Though they ran in rivers and stared back from the eyes of bears. One day someone would show those settlers a mercy, darker, wiser, different. He’d take their clamped hands and speak words that fell on deaf ears. Softly, quietly like the kindling of kindly fire. He would blow into them, truth.

 

There’s magic in the ground.

 

In her crisp, pleated uniform Octavia sighed a breath that steamed and the cold, mountain air bit back. She watched the boys beneath her wood-hanging balcony, beating into each other for the soft, furry white ball that passed between them. Octavia wondered if they even recognized the living codgle for what it really was. One of them almost managed to hit it with his broad-ended stick, but a dark-haired girl dodged between him and sent it flying down the grassy field.

“That’s enough, Besque!” Octavia shouted from her bird’s eye post. Other girls snickered behind her. One of them gulped down her frost-tinged fear, but that was part of it, too.  _ She has to know _ , Octavia thought,  _ what it’s like to be here. To be  _ _ us _ .

Besque grinned up at the balcony box, her midnight pony-tail bouncing behind her. “Like you’re gonna let one of these chumps on the team!” She was off before the words were out of her mouth, lightning quick despite her charming southern drawl.

The dirt-stained boys were not amused. They shouldn’t be. Headmaster Hawthorne had meant it in her meeting with the captain. If Octavia didn’t start adding male players to the Reeling team, they’d all be cut.

O rolled her eyes as another one, Adam perhaps, tripped over his stick. It wasn’t that the girls were trying to be discriminatory. They were just, well...better.

“Brianna O’Malley, was it?” Octavia demanded of the small girl next to her, whose breaths were coming shallower and shallower. There was still that matter of what would be done about her. And though Octavia was not one to repeat herself, not on  _ her  _ field anyway, she couldn’t miss the girl’s 6 inch spring-board jump into the air when a fifth-year swiped his stick at the jaw of a teammate. In the echoing crunch, Octavia felt all her girls swear and grin.

Below them the rounds progressed to the penultimate test. Besque, pointing to the totem that twisted slowly out of the ground at the end of the field, summoned the Serpent that seemed especially ready to play. Besque laughed as is it disentangled from the broad, wooden pole and wound itself through the grass, hissing and chasing the boys across the field. She really was quite a terrible being, and that was generous. Octavia felt a grin splitting against her own face and wondered what other people looked for in their vice captains. Hugs and kisses?

_ Blood and best wishes _ , Octavia corrected, proudly. And so O again asked Brianna for any sort of human response, a nod, a handshake, two blinks for yes, because men spilling blood over a ball, or a belle for that matter, was absolutely as human as it got.

“Still there?” she tried, again.

“Don’t faint, please. We’ve got enough of those,” Liz muttered behind her as she polished her grubby winch one bench away.

“Oi, she’s a person,” Zina shot back from her sprawling position two benches up. She had a rag under her head and a book tented over it and as usual it was usually anybody’s guess whether or not she was awake.

“These are just the facts,” Aditi said with a sigh as she plopped down next to Brianna who was all but shivering now.

“Keep your facts off my field,” O threw over her shoulder to silence.

“You’re getting soft in your old age, O.” Antioche’s voice rang out like a sickly sweet seeping kind of poison. O felt her eyes roll, violently, but when the girls turned to her with incredulous eyes she was already laughing as she pulled tight the ends of her pony tale. An eagle squawked between the clouds and bore down over the field. 

“Sixth year’s the charm,” she said back, tightly. And then in one fluid motion she wasn’t in the box, but dodging, and yelling plays and running the codgel down the field. The wind seemed to kick up to meet her. And as always she was ready.

Brianna found her voice, finally and stuttered over rehearsed lines. “Yes, uh, please call me, Bree.”

If she managed anything else the sound was swallowed by the deafening cracking sound as huge oaks shot up out of the grass all over the field. O closed her eyes for a moment and took in their sweet smell. The codgel bounced between them like a pinball.

“I take from the accent and the name that you’re Irish?” Antioche continued in Octavia’s place, but Bree was silent again.

“Reeling is like Hurling,” Antioche continued as she often did when noone was listening. “But more-” she waved her hands as she looked at the other girls for support.

“Bloody?”

“Violent.”

“Spiritual.” They all swiveled to Aditi for an explanation, but she only shrugged and cracked her knuckles.

Besque whooped as the codgel soared across the field and looped twice around the totem goal post, marking their point.

Antioche turned back around and wrinkled her nose. “It’s just a little more.”

 

Octavia glanced back at the girls in the box and the eagle making rounds above them and the boys breathing heavily, but staring at her with so much hope and envy and annoyance and disgust. It was hard to see everything you would never be in a skirt. One of them spit a tooth. A figure moved between the surrounding trees. Her girls groaned as Brianna fainted in the box. Octavia swore, threw her stick to a stuttering boy and stalked off the field toward the treeline.

 

_ One at a time. _

 

An hour later Brianna woke up smelling lavender in a nearly empty, soft-lit room filled with what looked like cabin beds. A woman tending the large flower on her desk smiled, but said nothing. Bree could still hear the shouting sounds of people on the field and turned to watch them out the window behind her head. The girls were playing now, evading near misses and sure death like elaborate, choreographed dances. The seemed to know exactly where the other would be. Bree jolted again as her forgotten phone vibrated in her pocket. New message from C.

 

“How are you?”

 

Bree sighed her relief and called her brother in a panic, but only got voicemail. “ _ Banshee’s breath _ , C,” she swore, her voice breaking. It was too much, too soon.

“Ciaran, this was a mistake. I don’t belong here.” She watched the girls whoop and yell and laugh and wished for the safety of her bed, the comfort of an irish breakfast. “I’m not like them and they know.”

Someone cleared their throat in the next bed and Bree’s cheeks bloomed red as she watched Octavia peruse a battered copy of  _ Fantastic Beasts. _

“Ciaran, I have to g-”

“You think we don’t like you because you’re different,” O said quietly into the book, her elaborate crown of braids shifting as she snapped it shut. And then she chuckled to herself. “Because  _ you’re  _ different.”

“Octavia, I-” Bree began.

Octavia stood and pointed out the window considering the girls. “Tramp,” she said matter-of-factly as she hovered over a girl Bree would later learn was Valeria. “Gypsy,” for Aditi. “Princess,” for Liz. Octavia laughed as she turned to another. “ _ Queen _ ,” for Zina. Lingering  on Antioche, she shrugged her shoulders. “Bitch.”

Bree gave a watery smile, but Octavia didn’t return it.

“People who  _ should  _ belong, don’t. Not here. And not on my team.”

“Octavia, I’m sorry. It’s just-”

“You’re in America,” Octavia said, sharply finally looking into Bree’s childlike eyes. She shook her head and reached for her tattered  _ Fantastic Beasts  _ before stalking toward the exit. At the door she grabbed a yellow candy from the glass bowl on the desk and pet the bright flower. It seemed to purr in her hand. When she looked back Bree didn’t know whether she meant a threaten or encourage her. “Get different,” she said, smiling at that purring creature. Then she turned on her heel, her words floating back to Bree, shell-shocked on her bed. 

“Or get lost.”


	13. When

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here's the promised excerpt from When which similar to Octavia, the Great, comes from near the beginning of the H's school year, though I wouldn't consider her a freshman. You can however consider this Hermione's first official meeting with Draco.  
> Also: Oxblood is the wizarding name for Oxford and we are going heavy duty on the magic ;)
> 
> Let me know if you enjoy!
> 
> (Silly readers, proof-reading is for squares! Xx - L)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want you guys to know how important these next stories are to me. Right Now was a special beginning for me and the first fic I ever attempted. It's not everything I want it to be, no beginner's tale ever is, but it's special in my heart and it's existence led to Octavia, the Great, When, and ? which is soon to come, too. I'm so thankful for that, and for you guys letting me weave this elaborate tapestry. Your comments and support mean the absolute world.
> 
> Thank you, always, for reading,
> 
> Xx -Leveeohsah

Hermione straightened her tweed jacket and fought to keep upright as she walked the cobbled pathway to Oxblood’s renown coffee-shop, the Blight.

At least that’s what the wizarding professors took to calling it after discovering its existence, and being the young adult rebels that they were, the name was adopted like a child loved from birth. It was tucked away right in the bustle of the main walk with Engineering and Sociology buildings on either side and maybe that’s what made it so special. It served as a sort of meeting place for philosophers and physicists , politicians and popes; for people who had anything at all to say, The Blight would hear it over a cup of Kadabra coffee and the lively din of a hundred minds communing. The five-floor estate sported the coffee-shop, a creaking library of banned books (everything from Elizabeth the Erudite’s treatises to Astronomic Erotica), a one-night-only hotel floor with ‘experience’ rooms that changed about as often as the portrait password that guarded it, the intimate theater that played forbidden films from the second-floor library and the exquisite fine dining room sandwiched between it all. That the Blight hid under similar charms that had concealed the beloved Grimauld Place only added to its strange charm and Hermione felt a twinge at the thought. It was a wonder, the marvelous things that hide right under your nose.

 

Hermione tried to step quickly over slippery stone paths as fat raindrops beat down in time to the pulsing of her unreasonable hangover. “Thanks for that, Clarke,” she muttered softly and part of her was surprised to find she meant it. They’d had fun. She’d missed fun.

 

Now she stood on a slightly loose brick in front of The Alley between lectures on quantum physics and denouncements of the Third Reich and waited for something good.

 

A breeze swirled around her ankles as brick by brick of the Blight slid into place, it’s black, glossy eaves looking positively medieval in the rain. She hurried inside, past the heavy knocker on the front door and asked for directions from the beautiful centaur moonlighting behind the bar. There was a man looking excitedly into the eyes of his listeners as he gripped a stack of papers. Hermione read one that was plastered to the bar: “On the Metaphysics of Magic.”

 

“The dining Hall, please,” Hermione asked the centaur once he looked in her direction. She checked her watch. _Already a minute late._

 

The centaur grinned to himself and hit a button beside the bar that said, “three.”

A space in the wood-paneled wall opened quickly beside it. Hermione entered the makeshift elevator, but was immediately confused.

“There are no buttons,” she said, but the centaur went on sweeping behind the bar. She glanced around the room for instruction, but the half-man smiled and flicked the end of the broom at her. Hermione reeled back, stunned.

 

“Try it now,” he said, his smile wolfish and knowing. Hermione stepped quickly back into the space in the wall and felt herself rising even before the doors closed.

 

She smacked a hand on her forehead. _Fairy dust. Duh._

 

On the third floor the doors opened to a room of white linen tables and bronze cutlery. There was a women singing softly at the piano and hanging candles overhead.Hermione’s breath caught at the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that occupied the whole west wall.

 

“Mrs. Granger,” came the voice of the maitre-de, a part-time graduate student Hermione swore she recognized, but he was wearing a mask from the nose up. It didn’t matter, he was already on his way to her table.

 

“Wow,” Hermione said with a smile as she gazed out of those huge windows. Though it was tucked farther back in the corner, her table had the perfect view. She put a hand to the cool glass, taking in the students who were hurrying to and fro below. Thunder cracked above them and she smiled.

 

“Ms. Granger,” was the first thing he’d said. Not that that mattered either. She’d sit when she was ready. Five seconds later she was smoothing the stylishly frayed edges of her tweed miniskirt to sit opposite one Draco Malfoy, of course, the only representative from the Wood and Wand available on such short notice. He stood as long as she did, a snake with gentleman’s manners, but as he sat she noticed how his long fingers curled around the armrests, his shoulders seemed almost too wide for his button-down and sweater combo. He was taller, stronger, and- Hermione glanced at the still-red scars on his knuckles- something about him spelled danger.

 

He cleared his throat and her eyes were drawn to that bright skin at his neck. The top button of his shirt was undone and for a moment Hermione thought she might like run her teeth along it’s warmth. She quickly shook the thought free from her head, almost horrified. The Blight could really get to you.

 

“Draco,” she answered. He seemed to think that was almost funny and smiled. These tables were too small. She could feel the warmth of his legs underneath even as she distracted herself with the raging, grey clouds outside. When she turned back to him he was staring just to the side of her face. Hermione tucked her hair behind her ear.

 

“How are you?”

 

Hermione cocked her head to one side and simply stared at him, wondering at his words. _What are we, old friends?_ She thought. His eyes betrayed nothing. In fact, their intense scrutiny seemed meant to intimidate her. She stared back.

 

“Take off your clothes.”

 

“Excuse me,” she said too forcefully.

 

“Your coat.”

Draco’s eyes danced. He flicked one finger in the direction of the waiter who was right behind her. “She’ll be keeping the coat on, it seems.”

 

“I did not mean to offend, Miss.”

 

“No I-” Hermione stammered.

 

“Are you hungry?” Draco cut in, his hands folded tightly in front of him. The waiter looked between them expectantly.

 

“Starving.”

 

“Ravenous,” Draco concurred.

 

The waiter smiled. “I’ll be right back.”

 

Draco pulled out a pen and small notebook, completely unperturbed. “Do you consider yourself a hero?” He asked, benignly as he scribbled in the book.

 

Hermione scoffed. “Do you?”

 

“What does it matter what I think?” he asked, with an annoyed sigh.

 

“What does it matter what you think?” Hermione repeated. “Wow.”

 

He waited in agitated silence.

 

Hermione scoffed. “What you think put thousands of innocent wizards in the ground. What you think got some of my very best friends killed. What you think kept people too long in fear and now they don’t even remember how to live, anymore.”

 

Draco sat back and listened, his engrossing stare never changing. He seemed to consider every word.

 

“You’re right, though,” Hermione pressed on. “Because of what _I_ think, what _I DID_ , it doesn’t matter what you think. Not anymore.” She sat back in her seat and waited. She’d been wanting to say that for so long. The feeling was better than sex. She watched his mind turn, thinking of what to say next and almost high-fived herself.

 

“Hm,” was all he said back before scribbling in that black notebook, again.

 

_Hm?!??!!_ Hermione almost screamed. She laughed instead. “Honestly I don’t know how you can even sit across from me right now. Either you can’t stomach the thought of being this close to a _mudblood-”_

“Don’t.”

“Or,” Hermione pressed on, unstoppable. “You must just _wretch_ at the thought of what you did.”

“What _I did?”_ Draco repeated just as heated.

“What you did and what you are,” Hermione continued. “The beautiful, pure-blood _prince_.”

 

Draco paused before answering. He seemed to need to collect his thoughts and Hermione smiled internally.

 

He spoke, finally. “I thought we were putting blood behind us.”

“Can you?” she spat and turned back to the clouds.

“You’re afraid of me, then.” He said it without feeling, his diagnosis almost clinical.

Hermione gave a hard laugh as she turned back to him with a stare hard as ice. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

 

She turned back and found him staring at her again, openly, eyes swirling with something she couldn’t place. He reached his hand out over their small table then and she froze. He froze a moment, too. “Fairy dust,” was all he said.

Color rose in her cheeks and that seemed to unfreeze him. Slowly, he brushed something below her lip, but he didn’t move his hand. Only stared.

 

Hermione gulped. “Did you,” she cleared her throat, suddenly unable to move. “Did you get it?”

 

His stare flicked up to her eyes.

 

“No.”

 

The waiter came back just then with something undoubtedly delicious, but Hermione barely registered it as they jumped away from each other. Draco wiped his mouth as she straightened her skirt, suddenly desperate to get out of there.

 

The waiter grinned at her and she tried to smile back, but her face felt too hot. She muttered her thanks and stood up too fast.

 

“I have to-”

 

“No,” Draco said as he stood, abruptly. The glassware clinked at the jostling. Hermione stared back at him confused, but he pulled his coat on stiffly. “I’ll go,” he said, gruffly. The three feet of table between them suddenly didn’t seem a suitable barrier.

Hermione only watched him, silently, imagining. She suddenly wondered what she might do if he turned back to her. What he might do.

 

Somewhere the muffled voice of her rationality screamed from the back of her mind, _It’s DRACO. MALFOY._ But it didn’t mean anything just then.

 

“Anything she wants, Andal” Hermione heard him mutter to the waiter and then walked briskly off, taking the stairs instead, two at a time. Outside, he stuffed his hands in his pockets, turned up his coat collar against the wind. She stared down at him for a minute. He didn’t look back.

 

Hermione slumped against her chair, her headache coming back in full force. Her reflection stared back at her from the steaming tea kettle Andal had placed on the table. In her distorted reflection, fairy dust haloed her face and even glinted in her hair and suddenly she wasn’t hungry at all.


	14. The Time In Between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I open at the close."
> 
> Nothing is tied and everything is loosed and life is like that sometimes.*
> 
> *Especially left un-proof-read to add to this chaotic effect for your reading pleasure.
> 
>  
> 
> I welcome you now to the end. Take your time, won't you?
> 
> Xx -L

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled to write this. First because a major part of it references something in When (forthcoming). Second, because I wanted this to feel as heavy to read as it was for me to write. And I'll say no more about it.
> 
> If you are reading this and would like a follow-up series, please comment down below and I'll leave an excerpt as the final 'chapter' of this story. I do already have a bit of an idea, but I know it's not just about me anymore.
> 
> Thank you all, thank you always, for being here & of course, for reading,
> 
> All my love,
> 
> -Leveeohsah

Hermione blinked her squeezed-shut eyes open when the blow didn’t come. When nothing came. No shoes dropped, no shit hit the fan, not a creature stirred.

 

Not even the one snarling in mid-air as she took a shaky step forward.

 

“ _Bear?_ ” Hermione whispered at the creature, his hackles raised, transformed into something of myth or legend. Hermione ran her hand behind his ear. “Bear,” she whispered again, sadly.

 

“It worked.”

 

Hermione felt her eyes close again, suddenly incredibly tired. “Did you think your aunt was lying?”

 

“Of course I thought she was lying.”

 

Hermione shook her head. “Your mother calls her _Trixie._ However awful she was, Bellatrix wouldn’t lie to her.” She rubbed a hand over her eyes. “They’ve got,” she coughed. “They _had_ love.”

Draco huffed a quiet laugh somewhere behind her and she opened her eyes at the sound. It really was a wonder they were so calm. She glanced around the room now that she had the chance, homely despite its exposed piping and scuffed floorboards. And everywhere around them, in the walls, under chairs, she suspected even between the cushions were books. Hundreds of books crammed into this low-lit back room. Where there weren’t books there were pages and half-pages strewn in haphazard heaps and piles as if a printing press had recently exploded. And in the midst of it all a renaissance painting of frozen villains in various states of anger and exclamation were caught unaware. Hermione stared into the ethereally frozen faces of strangers she never wanted to know and the bright eyes of her closest friends and found they looked much the same: contorted in some combination of deathly anger and deathly fear.

 

“Hermione,” Draco muttered and she flinched at the sound.

_1…2…3_

She crossed the room in strides, surprisingly composed despite the stone-still scene around them. The only sound that made any sense was the uneven pounding of blood in her ears.

 

“In any case here’s your ring back,” she said, casually, trying not to get used to the weight on her finger. Its serpentine band was already imprinting its familiar weight on her hand. She slid the trinket off and held it out to him and he glared at her without seeing it.

 

“I don’t want it back.”

“Well I don’t want it at all.” She thought of the soft pain where he had just been inside of her and cleared her throat, but held her head higher. Barbed wire words were her only armor now. Nothing else made any sense.

 

“Hermione.” She blinked, now at how callous she was being. He was worried about _the ring_. Of course. But the room still stood still around them. Removing the ring hadn’t broken the spell.

 

_Fuck the ring,_ she couldn’t help thinking. How many times had she thought of how this might be. How she’d feel and now it all felt like a prop. She would have no part of it.

 

Draco huffed like he was dealing with a petulant child and rolled up the sleeves on his shirt. “Hermione, pl-”

“Please. Just take it,” she stole the word before he could say it and nearly dropped the old stone when his fingers brushed against her own.

 

“So that’s it?” He said finally, working his jaw between the words.

 

Hermione stepped away from him, assessing the room once more. “Six minutes more silence if Aunt _Trixie_ meant every word.” She sighed and swat the pistol out of Jan’s lifeless hand. It floated a foot through the air and froze once more. “Now’s the part where you run.”

 

“Say that again.”

 

She glanced at him over her shoulder, at the quiet anger she could see in his stillness, his drawn eyebrows, the slight tilt of his head. “You. Run. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about; this is your favorite part.”

 

Draco folded his arms, probably to keep from strangling her or killing someone, but he said nothing and moved not an inch more. She glanced from him to Bear. _Like father, like son._

 

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Don’t look at me like that, you know I’m right.” She grunted as she pulled the gun out of the tight grip of one of Applegate’s guard-dogs, annoyed that he wasn’t even helping.  “You must’ve planned for two options tonight. Either you died,” she paused to toss the gun behind a chair. “Or, you struck some kind of deal, maybe kill a few bad guys in the process,” they both rolled their eyes at the term _bad guys “_ and then you disappear in the wind-”

 

“Would you have wanted me to stay?”

 

“Was that _ever_ an option?”

 

Silence again. Hermione chuckled and turned to him, finally onto something that made sense. “You’ve still got a five-minute head-start. Just go-”

 

“Yeah I know how the ring works, Hermione. I was there, too.” He shook his head and for a moment she almost regretted dredging up the awful memory. “Do you understand what you just did? You _froze time,_ Hermione, in this little room for seven, full minutes.” He took a step toward her and on instinct she stepped back. “Seven minutes because I gave you _this_ ring.” He held up the offending item twinkling in the low light and Hermione groaned and got back to work on collecting the bullets still floating in the air, halfway to their targets. _This isn’t about us_ , she tried to tell herself as she plucked a still-hot bullet that nearly grazed Clarke’s ear.

 

“And it worked because I love you.”

She froze, as still as the others.

 

_You don’t love him._

_Would it matter if you did?_

“And you love me. That’s the _only_ way this ring works.”

 

He sounded so sure and she thought part of him seemed to need it be true. She tossed the bullet shells into the corner, behind the cracked spines of some well-worn volumes whose titles’ she could just make out as Elizabeth the Erudite’s the _Interspecies Treaties._ She thought there were some spines she’d like to crack herself.

 

Draco sighed, exasperated and raked a hand through his hair. “Tell yourself whatever you want, H. But, that’s the truth.”

 

_Wow. The fucking truth?!_

She turned on her heel, suddenly incredibly hot.

“SO?” Hermione countered. He was giving her that sky-scraper leveling stare again and suddenly the were back in his kitchen, in her office, in his home, in her bed. Like there was so much that _she_ Hermione Granger, couldn’t know. And just like then, he was planning on leaving before she ever could.

She crinkled her eyes at him, incredulous. She had a feeling if she looked long enough she might finally figure him out, but she had neither the time or the patience today.

“So what, Draco?”

“ _So?”_

“Big whoop, Draco. So, we love eachoth-”

“Big _whoop?!_ ”

“And it won us 7 measly minutes, and this is how you’re wasting it-”

“ _Morgana’s bloody…_ _I’m_ the one wasting it?!”

“Merlin, what are you, deaf?” Her voice was rising now, but she was beyond stopping.

_1…2…_

“I _love_ you.”

_Breathe._

“Did you love me at that train-stop?”

_Out._

The iron is his eyes was smelting, but it only fueled her fire. Who the fuck did he think he was? Who the fuck did he think _she_ was?!

“What good did your _love_ do me then, Draco?”

_In._

“What good could it possibly do me now?” she snarled.

Another step forward. Another step back.

 

“ _Hermione._ ” His voice grew harsher trying to match her vitriol. “Will you never let that go.”

_Out._

“You are the only person who finds it easy to let that go. To let _people_ go.” Her parents’ faces swam unbidden into view and her heart tightened at the old wound. A sob grew in her chest. She wouldn’t, couldn’t have left them if she’d had any other choice. They would still love her now. She could never shake the feeling of her own betrayal.

 

Hermione barked a laugh. _And that this is how I’m meant to pay for it._

 

“I didn’t get on the train,” she said finally and looked at him, waiting for recognition. For understanding. She cleared her throat and told him what the _truth_ really sounded like _._ “I watched the train go by and waited. For _hours. Four_ hours, to be exact. I know, believe me I know, but _I did._ I waited for you and I didn’t get on the train even though it was raining real, _English_ rain, Draco,” she laughed a quiet, tinny sound. “And I know it didn’t make sense, but then we never did,” the words poured out of her mouth like a waterfall. She couldn’t have stopped them and she was beyond trying now.

She shook her head, trying to free it of those old thoughts. “Draco, it wasn’t like…we weren’t-” She struggled for words watched as his stoic façade began to crumble. “I _knew_ you weren’t coming.”

She watched his sharp intake of breath, but she couldn’t take the words back. No lie could cover them now, anyway.

She furrowed her brow. “I just…I was so, so wrong about you.”

“H.”

_In._

“What good is 7 minutes when I was so, _incredibly_ wrong for four hours,” she breathed a laugh between the words. She pulled Mitch’s gun from his grasp and suddenly it all seemed unreal. “I was so stupid,” she whispered, stunned.

 

“Hermione,” His voice was too close. She clutched Mitch’s gun and spun on her heel.

Draco raised his hands. Both of them just as frozen as the others, but Hermione’s hands trembled as she pointed the gun. Her heart ached in her chest and suddenly it didn’t matter if there were three feet or a train-stop or an ocean between them. They would never get whatever happy ending she’d dreamt, alone. They would always end. And it was time she woke up.

 

“You have three. minutes.” Three little minutes before the world turned again. Before everything went back to normal. Hermione cocked the gun, just the way he’d taught her so long ago. They would get out of here. She’d be _DAMNED_ if they didn’t get out of here. Not together, she’d given up on that dream now. They would go their separate ways and put all of this journey behind them. Separate, and separated, but whole.

 

“This. Is the part. Where you run.”

 

Every alarm bell she’d ever set in her head was screaming. Her heart threatened to beat out of her chest. She didn’t know what she was doing but if he didn’t leave now none of it would even matter. She needed it to matter.

He took a step forward and Hermione raised the gun even higher. He sighed and glanced out the window like they had all the time in the world.

 

Hermione gripped the gun tighter “Oh, and Running 101, Draco?”

He smiled, suddenly. “Tell me, love.”

“If you’re running…don’t look back.”

… _3_

She let out the breath she’d been holding and something in his face changed. It etched itself into him like regret. He heard her words even if she didn’t say them. _Go. This time I’m letting you go._

Another step and Hermione’s gun would be pressed against his chest.

And he took it.

The gun shook between her fingers, but she stared back into his eyes.

 

_Okay._

“W-what?” She blinked up at him, confused.

 

He took another step forward and she was forced to step back. She shook her head trying to ignore the roaring in her ears and focus on whatever was real.

 

“If I’m running, I don’t look back.” But he wasn’t running. He wasn’t moving at all.

 

“ _Draco.”_ She demanded, gripping the gun tighter. He nodded, and his eyes never left her face.

 

“Okay.”

 

She couldn’t think and she couldn’t look away. She was out of her element, in this room surrounded by books and no answers. There was only one thing to do.

 

_Run, you idiot._ She pushed her gun against his chest, but he didn’t waver. He would not be moved and Hermione found herself wondering how long three minutes really were, anyway.

_You NEED to go_ , she willed him to act with her eyes.

“ _DRACO.”_ There couldn’t be more than two minutes left. She gripped the gun so tightly between her fingers they went white.

_The ONE time, I need it. You ass-hole._

His steel eyes were so solid and sure as she glared at him down the gun and she tugged hard at her lip, holding back sudden tears she couldn’t explain. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair, and she bit her tongue as a tear slipped down her cheek.

_Please,_ she begged him with her eyes as she wavered on uneasy feet. Saying nothing, he leaned into the barrel of her gun.

 

One step forward, nowhere left to go.

 

They could’ve wasted three minutes like that, and he would’ve let her. She knew that. She knew.

_Fuck._

“ _Dra-co_.”

Her voice broke on the word and he was undone. He swat the gun from her hand and crushed her stumbling against his chest. She gripped his shirt as he trailed kisses down the bridge of nose and she let out a shuddering breath.

 

And he was there, too, his mouth moving across hers after ages like coming up for air. He pushed into her everything he wouldn’t allow himself to say. His kiss was anger and fear; jealousy and longing without restraint. _I can’t go without you. I can’t leave this. You did this to me. My favorite thing, my only thing. My everything. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forget me, too._

His lips were demanding, searching her out for those secret, stupid, incoherent truths and she gave them to him without thinking. Her lips spelled babies and impossible probabilities; running and rescue and forever them.

_You ALWAYS come back. I will ALWAYS protect you._ He bucked against her but she pulled tight against his hair and he groaned.

_Don’t you ever forget that._

Their kiss was the most natural kind of violence. When he finally forced himself away from her they were heaving like two boxers in a ring. _Hermione_ , he mouthed as he stared down at her, and she marveled at the things that poured out of them when they had everything to lose.

 

“All of mine,” he muttered, running his thumb under her chin. “All of me.”

 

She gasped as her gathered her against his waist, her arms wrapping instinctively around his neck. She straddled him as he lowered them down into Applegate’s vacated armchair, gently kissing each of her eyes which were wet. She smiled and he grinned and she saw tears there, too.

Hermione trailed her fingers over his lips. “One minute, huh? That’s all I get.”

He cupped her face in his hands so she’d have to meet his eyes. He kissed her hand and his tired smile almost stopped her breathing. “I’m Sorry.”

It was Sorry with a capital ‘S,’ she could tell. She traced it against his mouth even as her eyes grew full with tears.

 

“I’m not.”

 

Hermione stared at Draco like she was etching the moment into memory, until his eyes turned from their liquid grey to shine with the red and blue of wailing sirens. She stared until they came for him not one minute later. Until he was well and truly gone.

 

And she would’ve stared for four hours more if Clarke hadn’t led her gently from that spot, dodging medical staff and well-meaning stares; Applegate’s pleading and Josh’s threats. She would’ve stared all night. Because he hadn’t left her.

And he was still gone.

 

***

“How long did you know?”

 

She was watching Hermione politely refuse a brace from the medic who was tending to her bruised wrist. He looked at her with such gentle admiration, but Clarke knew that look. She was already lost in an older place, another time.

 

“I didn’t know,” she said finally as she leant against the hood of one of the cop cars that had swarmed the scene a few minutes earlier. She wasn’t actually sure when exactly they got there. The last twenty minutes had all been a little bit fuzzy and for now she was content to let it stay that way. 

 

She sighed. “I just-”

 

“You knew.”

Clarke finally turned to the hard-boiled, soft-hearted cop at her ear, but where she expected contempt, annoyance even she only found a resigned contemplation on Bellamy’s face.

 

She threw him a bone.

 

“Do you remember Mr. Opum.”

 

“I remember you elbow-deep in his body cavity, yes.”

 

Clarke rolled her eyes. “I warned you that people get an ideal image of their killer in their minds. They stop questioning irregularities and motives. Stop questioning how it is people manage to die. But, they put big guys like Lincoln in jail because he looks scary.”

 

“But Alice..”

 

“Alice knows everything there is to know about you. Including your weaknesses. She would know how to leave a trail you wouldn’t find. Applegate already knew your relationship to Draco. He could get to him by getting to you and there's no one closer to you than _Alice_.”

Bellamy stared at her as if she had grown two heads.

 

“Are men really this blind? Im pretty sure she even knows how to forge your signature. She brings your laundry, knows your schedule including bathroom breaks. I mean she likes all the things you like.”

They watched as Mitch gingerly lowered a cuffed Alice into another police vehicle.

“Except, of course, me.”

 

He smiled finally at that and she was glad to see the sight. It was exactly what she needed to complete this incredibly heavy night. Suddenly the whole scene grew a hundred times less interesting. She felt her eyes slipping nearly closed.

 

“There’ll be paperwork in the morning.”

“Mhm,” Bellamy muttered into her hair.

 

“Some for HR too I suspect.”

Another laugh. Her eyes found Hermione’s and her joy dried up. “Will you take us home?”

He looked over at Octavia who was leading Bear into the backseat of Lincoln’s car and knew she’d be safe.

 

“Yeah. Yeah I will.”

 

***

 

Bellamy carried Hermione into Clarke’s room and felt something like a twin hole within their chests. His brother was gone and neither of them could’ve stopped it. They didn’t know even if he was safe.

 

“Gently, Blake.” He bristled hearing the familiar nickname, but lowered Hermione gently into the bed.

 

Clarke sat down on the bed next to him and they stared down at the power, political like she was their own. She looked so much like Octavia then it hurt. He gently pushed a lock of hair from her forehead and planted a gentle kiss on the crown of her head. Her childlike scent filling him with bright, old memories.

_For Draco,_ he hoped she felt him mean it. When he glanced back at Clarke her eyes were wet and he kissed them, too.

 

When he finally closed the bedroom door behind him Clarke was whispering into the sheets.

“It’s Kent, H. I’ve got us.” She kissed her small hand and held it to her chest. “I’ve got you.”

 

He walked himself to the front door, and poured a nearly-full packet of cigarettes into their recycle bin. And he pulled off his badge, too, and ran his finger over its golden grooves as he held it over the trash. He smiled then, because he’d been here before. So, he did what he always did. He pulled out his phone instead.

 

“I’m calling about a drug deal,” Bellamy smiled into the phone. “But you already knew about that…” He gripped the badge like a lifeline. “I’m supposed to call you for help, now. We’ll go to the park and outrace our problems.”

Bellamy rubbed his eyes and swore, somehow ashamed in the dark.

“I’m so sorry that you felt…that you couldn’t tell me you had nightmares and demons, too.” He coughed and wondered how he was possibly meant to say it all in one voicemail.

“You can tell me, now you know. I’m older. Much older, now it feels like.”

 

His eyes caught on the cheap green apple shampoo at the top of the recycle pile and he suddenly, he grinned and sighed in the same breath.

 

“Clarke, she’s… she’s something like apples to me, too. Bad coffee, maybe. I’m a sucker for bad coffee. And blondes, as you well know.” He smiled but a weight bobbed in his throat and threatened to swallow it all.

 

“Anyway, dinner’s at 7,” he said quickly. “Always at 7. You know where to find us. So…find us, Drake.” He wiped his mouth and leaned against the post of his girlfriend’s porch and swore how it could all change in a matter of minutes and months.

 

“You know I’ll take care of them. Just…” He shrugged. “Just bring your trainers.”

 

And Bellamy waited, not for 7 minutes or 4 hours, but some time in between, just long enough to feel those incredible wounds old and new, grow purple and dull. In a few hours he would scour local, national, international databases for any record of Draco Malfoy. He would bargain and he would bribe. But just then he waited a moment, tired and hankering for coffee. He stood and kept his eyes trained on those faraway stars, just long enough to see the sun.


	15. And Then?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the anniversary of this fic, I leave you this.
> 
> Forward, always.
> 
> \- Xx, L

 Orange leaves crinkled underfoot and Hermione fought to keep calm as she balanced an apple pie from Maria’s in one hand and her cellphone in the other.

 

“No, I know that. Don’t you know I know that?” she said with a sigh calculating in her head what this long-distance call was going to cost her. “Tomorrow, alright? Leave it with Greta and I’ll handle it tomorrow.”

“Hermione-“

 “Tomorrow,” she finished, before snapping the phone shut. The wind picked up around her, howling through the empty trees, but the old house glowed under amber streetlights and she thought of how good it felt to be somewhere like home.

 

 _Or what used to be,_ she reminded herself. She bit her lip and stood a little longer on the sidewalk, freezing and frozen still. A dog barked from a yard nearby and she glanced toward it.

 

“I’m going, alright?”

 

Her fingers were purpling and she could feel her phone still buzzing in her pocket. She probably looked like such a creep, or an idiot, standing there in the dark.

 

_You’ll go. Of course you’ll go. Obviously. Soon. Maybe in a min-_

The dog growled and Hermione hurried forward, taking the steps two at a time. This was fine. She would be fine, but her hand hovered over the knocker and she waited for courage.

 _It shouldn’t be this hard,_ she scolded herself and shook her head. The wind blew harder, pushing her toward the door and took a deep breath.

 

_1…2..3-_

The door swung open to a bright warm room, the smell of rising dough and… surprise, and then a smile.

 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Clarke swore and Hermione grinned and sighed. The yard dog barked again and somewhere in the back of the house between clinking glasses and bellowing laughs, Hermione heard Bear answer.

 

“Happy Thanksgiving, Kent,” she beamed before Clarke pulled her into the warmth.

 

 _Just like home_.

 

***

“That’s incredible Octavia. London would be happy to have you,” Hermione raised her glass to the beaming young lawyer.

 _See? This isn’t so bad,_ she thought. And for a while it wasn’t. It was perfect. Until-

 

“So what’s it like to be a spy?” Mitch asked as he reached across Octavia’s plate for a roll of bread.  She swat his hand away and he yelped.

 

“Mitch,” Bellamy warned. He sat at the head of the table and Clarke held his eye from the other end. “No interrogating the guests, please.”

 

Mitch raised an eyebrow. “It’s _Hermione._ ”

 

Hermione was glad her phone rang if only to distract her hands with silencing it.

 

“It’s my house, my rules,” Bellamy said, reaching for his glass of wine and ignoring the incessant ringing.

“Our house,” Clarke interjected before he took a sip. He glanced back at her over the table and Octavia made the sound of a whip cracking over the table.

“Our house,” Bellamy repeated and gave Clarke a look Hermione couldn’t decipher though she’d seen it before, on another man, in another time.

 

Ilian, Octavia’s colleague and something more cleared his throat.

 

Mitch rolled his eyes.

 

“I’m just saying, we busted your pal last year for the very same deal, and you helped. I’m just curious.” Hermione thought she saw Bear’s ears perk up at their conversation, but only because she was avoiding everyone’s eyes.

 

“How was your flight, H?” Clarke offered, trying to diffuse the awkwardness. Octavia pushed her turkey around her plate.

 

“No complaints,” Hermione nodded and tried to say thank you with her eyes, but her phone buzzed again. She slid it into her lap. “I got an hour of sleep which is almost two with the time difference.”

 

Ilian laughed at that and suddenly she was thankful for him, too. Slowly, everyone’s forks resumed scraping against their plates.

 

“How is Draco, by the way?”

 

_Well fuck._

 Bear barked and ran for the door.

 

“Mitch-” Clarke and Bellamy growled in unison. Octavia bit her lip.

 

After a moment, Hermione realized they were still waiting for her answer. He was their friend, too.

“I wouldn’t know, actually,” she ended up muttering.

 

Mitch wrinkled his nose. “What? Isn’t he-”

 

“I don’t see him anymore,” she tried to say as normally as possible. “He, uh, doesn’t want me to see him in there, like that.” She waved her hand like it was nothing, and she hoped they didn’t notice it shaking “In there.”

 

Mitch was barely listening as he scooped mashed potatoes onto his already crowded plate.

“Huh, I thought they put rich people in the nice jails.”

 

“Jesus, Mitch!”

 

Hermione barked a laugh. “Not when your convicted of twelve counts of treason,” she said before downing her glass of wine.

“Bellamy.”

“ _Clarke._ ”

Four notifications pinged on Hermione’s phone and she tried to muffle the sound with her napkin.

Ilian glanced around their table in obvious confusion. “Who’s Draco?”

 

Octavia got up to console Bear who was whining and scratching at the door.

 

“Who needs more wine?” Hermione said brightly, but she stood up too fast and felt her legs wobble.

 

“Oh I’ll have-”

 

“Mitch!”

 

Bear howled.

 

“It’s fine,” Hermione said with a short, shrill laugh, and blanched at the sound.

 

“You don’t have to-“ Clarke began.

 

“Let me,” Bellamy finished.

 

Bear whimpered and Octavia’s phone buzzed.

 

“No really, Hermione-”

 

“ _Mitch!_ ”

 

Ilian scratched his head.

 

 

 

“Hermione,” Octavia said firmly just as another notification buzzed from her phone.

 

“Merlin,” she swore and finally glanced down at her phone where new messages were flooding in, but her eyes caught on the Daily Prophet alert above them all.

 

“Traitor and Death Eater sympathizer escapes Askaban,” the caption read in bright block print, but they barely registered as she stared down at the gaunt, pale face of-

 

" _Draco?_ "

 

_1…2.._

She never did make it to three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming soon.


End file.
